How to cook giant tortoise, according to a 360-year-old recipe book

The reptiles were imported from the Galapagos islands by aristocrats and eaten as a delicacy - Rodrigo Buendia/AFP

A guide on how to cook and serve a giant tortoise is among a slew of recipes discovered in a 360-year-old cookbook set to go to auction.

The book, entitled The Art and Mystery of Cooking, contains hundreds of recipes from late 17th-century Britain complete with diagrams, ranging from dishes enjoyed today such as almond tart and oysters, to cooking instructions for creatures such as tortoises and pike.

It advises that the creature should have its head, feet and tail cut off before being boiled in water, wine and salt. The finished meal is to be complemented by grated nutmeg, sweet butter and slices of orange.

It requires the patient to prepare a roasted chicken, two partridges, two rails, two quails and 12 sparrows, before grinding them all into a paste.

The cookbook features an elaborate recipe claiming to cure “consumption”, nowadays known as tuberculosis - BNPS

‘They just don’t come to market like this’

It is one of the earliest British cookery books to feature recipes that include turkey and potatoes, as these would only recently have been brought over from the Americas.

There are also extremely rare folding wood-engraved illustrations in the book that depict pie-pastry patterns, as well as in-text illustrations portraying fish and meats.

The second edition book, published in 1665, is said to be in “remarkable” condition for its age. It is tipped to fetch £900 when it goes under the hammer at Auctioneum in Bath, Somerset.

Caitlin Riley, an Auctioneum book specialist, said: “Cookbooks are the hardest type of book to find in good, readable condition – all the more so when nearly 400 years old!

“By their very nature they were made to be used, so stains, torn-out pages and annotations are very common. To find an example this early and in such clean condition is really remarkable; they just don’t come to market like this.”

The second edition book is said to be in “remarkable” condition for its age and is tipped to fetch £900 when it goes under the hammer - BNPS

The recipe for tortoise, in Old English, reads: “Cut off the head, feet and tail, and boil it in water, wine and falt, being boild, pull the fhell afunder, and pick the meat from the skins, and the gall from the liver, fave the eggs whole if a female, and ftew the eggs, meat and liver in a difh with fome gtated nutmeg, a little fweet herbs, minced fmall, and some fweet butter.

“Ftew it up, and ferve it on fine fippets, cover the meat with the upper fhell of the tortoife, and flices or juyce of orange.”

A recipe for tortoise is featured in the 360-year-old cookbook, written in Old English - BNPS

Turtle soup was a favourite at civic dinners from the 1750s onwards and was eaten by crews on shipping expeditions. But the creatures were over-hunted in the late 18th and 19th centuries, drastically reducing their population.

Heinz stopped selling turtle soup in the 1970s when sea turtles were included in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

The cookbook has been consigned by a private collector local to Bath and the sale will take place on Jan 15.

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