The green turtle ( Chelonia Mydas) or torti was a valuable resource to the Seychellois having contributed to the nutritional, economic and cultural fabric of the islands. It was an extremely important source of protein for the Seychellois from time of the settlement of the islands until 1994 when it became fully protected under the Wild Animals (Turtle) Protection Regulations.
The green turtles were commercially harvested; some even considered that they were exploited, mainly from the outlying islands for its meat, oil and calipee. The traditional means of capturing the turtle were by harpooning and by the turning of females when they came to lay their eggs on the beach.
Turtle Eggs
Turtle eggs were also relished throughout the islands. The eggs are the size of a ping pong ball with a soft shell.
They were rarely dug up from their nests but eggs from slaughtered females were readily consumed. There are three types of eggs that were consumed; the shelled eggs were eggs that had been laid and had a hard shell; the unshelled eggs were immature eggs that were still in a turtle and had not developed a hard shell. They have soft orange-yellow yolks veined with red, and the unfertile eggs that have only the albumin or egg white and no yolk and look pale cream. The eggs were mainly boiled and eaten as is or curried.
Supply of Green Turtles to Mahe Island
As mentioned before turtle was a major source of protein for most Seychellois and in order to ensure sufficient supply the government in 1912 constructed a turtle pond at Curieuse Island to start a turtle ranching program.
It did not succeed due mainly to diseases. Turtles require clean water , seagrass and algae and unfortunately the water in the pond was far from perfect for them to thrive.
There was also a holding pond at the long pier on Mahé.
Turtles were harvested in the outlying islands and kept in shallow pen and then transported to Mahé where they were held in the pond and issued out to be slaughtered on a weekly basis.
One of the islands that had a turtle pond was Remire Island. This pond was built by Mr. Edouard Lanier, who leased the island after the guano was completely exploited by The Seychelles Guano Company. The illustration, above, from the book Island Home , written by Wendy Day Veewers-Carter who leased the island during the 1960s, clearly showed where the turtle pond was located. This holding pond was shallow and the workers of the island had to fill it in daily with fresh sea water in order to keep turtles alive. Most of the turtles in the pond would have been harpooned and some would die from their injury while in the pond and some others while being transported to Mahé. If you wish to know more about life on the outlying islands in the 1960s-1970s, I recommend you buy the book.
The turtles were shipped on schooners. The flippers were tied together and they were placed on their back or carapace. This position was essential to keep the turtle in good condition. If they were not tied, they would speedily exhaust themselves by continuously thrashing about and if they were laid on their stomach they would have difficulty breathing and would quickly perish. They were usually placed on deck and covered with gunny bags which were constantly moistened with salt water to keep them cool.
The Kay
One of the most exotic ways to cook a turtle was making a kay. This was usually a big social occasion, usually held on a shaded beach, which lasted for close to five hours. The kay was made by removing all the meat from the turtle leaving in position the layer of flesh and fat about one inch thick adhering to the shell. The flesh was incised with a sharp knife in a diamond pattern and seasoned with cracked pepper, salt and spices.
A charcoal fire was prepared well in advance to ensure that the flame had died down to embers and that the heat distribution was even. The shell was then placed face up, about half a meter over the heat and cooked slowly for about five hours. One had to ensure that the charcoal did not flare up as this would burn the shell. There should be no flame at all. Some rice was cooked separately and a palm heart salad was also prepared. These were mixed with the cooked meat in the shell and served from the shell. The mixture was usually eaten with the fingers
Kitouz
Live turtles were quite heavy to ship from the outlying islands and also took a lot of space on the schooners. Consequently, some of the meat was salted and packed in barrels and then shipped to Mahé. The salted turtle meat is locally called kitouz. It was considered a major delicacy and cooked primarily as a coconut curry with brenzel or aubergine. In fact, the two ingredients marry so well together that it has coined a local Creole expression “tou kitouz y annan son brinzel“, meaning, “everyone finds his/her perfect match”.
As the harpooning and eating of turtles is now illegal, this ingredient will not find its place on our dining table any more. Salted beef is a good alternative and when cooked with coconut milk and aubergine taste close enough to the original. It is at times known as fo kitouz. Interestingly enough, the word could have derived from the Malagasy word kitoza which is a smoked dried beef.
The Calipee – Kalipi
In the Seychelles the kalipi is the light yellowish, gelatinous semi-cartilaginous tissue linking the carapace, top shell, and the plastron or bottom shell. It was boiled until it became soft looking more like a big piece of gelatin. It was exported but locally, it was sliced and used mainly in salad or curried in coconut milk.
Kalipi also refers to the calipash which was also exported to Europe to be used as the main ingredients in turtle soup. Calipash is the dull-green fatty substance inside the upper shell (carapace) and the light yellow fatty substance attached to the bottom shell ( Plastron).
I quote below how Thomas Bellis, the London ‘Turtle King’ in 1908 described how the calipash and calipee were prepared for export market:
” The turtle should be killed by cutting off the head; and the belly shell then taken off carefully, and cleaned from blood and adhering red meat. The belly shell is then to be placed in scalding hot water until the calipee peels off. Care must be taken not to over-scald or the white bloom will disappear from the outside, which greatly depreciates the value. The freed calipee (in as large pieces as are convenient) should then be dried in the sun, on wire frames. It will dry quite hard, and must be kept from dust and dirt, and packed in plain wooden boxes or barrels. On the back shell is the dark green or black-meat – calipash- near the edge of the shell- this can be scalded off and dried in the same way…”
The production of calipee started around 1906 and involved great waste of the turtle meat. According to Mr. Guy Lionnet : ” a 200-300 lb turtle yields only about three and a half pounds of calipee”. All calipee produced in the Seychelles was exported and export figures show the heavy toll taken on the turtle population up until the 1970s. In 1912, which appears to have been the peak year for calipee, 36,900 lb, valued at Pound Sterling 2,140.00, the equivalent of 9,000 turtles , were exported. In fact from 1907 to 1938. 375,560 lb, valued at Pound Sterling 61,849.00 , the equivalent of 114,000 turtles were exported.
In order to minimise the impact on the green turtle population, in 1925, the Government instituted regulations to preserve the eggs and the young turtle and in 1948, close seasons for catching adult turtles were imposed. These controls proved ineffective and consequently a total ban on the capture of the green turtles was imposed in 1968 and in 1994 it became fully protected under when the Wild Animals (Turtle) Protection Regulations.
The word kalipi may have been derived from the Jamaican word calipee or callipe introduced to the Seychelles by the traders from the West Indies.
Marinade
Sometimes, in the outlying islands, they would run out of salt to salt the turtle meat. One way to resolve the problem was to make marinade.
The culinary definition of marinade is a spiced liquid mixture of oil, wine, vinegar, herbs, etc, in which meat or fish is soaked before cooking to enhance its flavor and sometimes to tenderize it. The turtle marinade does not fit into that definition.
To make marinade, the turtle meat was cubed and partially dried in the sun and then cooked in its own oil and allowed to cool. The marinade, meat and oil, was then placed in a drum and stored and taken to Mahe for sale.
My experience of turtle harpooning
As a young boy, I used to enjoy partaking in harpooning trips in the lagoon of Grand Anse on Praslin Island. This was a very quiet affair.
The oars were used as paddles and we were not allowed to touch the side of the pirogue when paddling as this would scare away any turtle that could be around. We would carry a hurricane lamp and a series of harpoons for different circumstances. For example, a lighter harpoon would be used on solitary turtle whereas a heavy harpoon, called klou, filled with gravel would be used on mating turtles so both could be caught. Turtle harpooning was always done early evening on calm days.
The Legal Protection of the Green Turtle
The stock of the Green Turtle started to dwindle from the day the first settlers arrived and few years earlier, and the Government of the day was very aware of it and this is why there has been a long build-up in legislation to protect its population. For interest sake, I post below a short summary of the laws, regulations and ordinances attempting to protect the turtles- Contributed by Pat Matyot, Dr Jeanne A. Mortimer, & Adrian Skerrett of the Island Conservation Society (ICS)- Nation 15 April 2013.
“Although serious turtle protection in Seychelles began relatively recently, the first recommendations for the conservation of this resource date from a long way back. Over two centuries ago, in 1787, Jean-Baptiste de Malavois warned that “la tortue de mer (green turtle) devient de jour en jour plus rare dans les Isles Seychelles”, and recommended that “il serait convenable de défendre aux habitants, très expressément et sans réserve, d’en faire la pêche…” He was just as concerned about the over-exploitation of the hawksbill turtle: “L’interdiction de cette pêche … est donc on ne peut pas plus sage…”
Very early in the 20th century there was legislation (Ordinances 16 of 1901 and 2 of 1904, revised as Ordinances 5 of 1925 and 5 of 1929) that specified minimum sizes for both green and hawksbill that could be hunted, prohibited the taking of buried eggs, banned the use of torches for night-hunting and the hunting of turtles within 1,000 metres of the high water line, etc. Needless to say, these partial measures were difficult to enforce and turtle stocks continued to decline. In fact, the real focus of this legislation was not so much to protect the turtles as to protect the rights of the land owners to the turtles on their property.
Government Notice 452 of 1948 and then the Female Turtles Protection Regulations of 1962 introduced the concept of a closed season during which green turtles could not be taken. The 1968 Green Turtle Protection Regulations introduced a complete ban on the hunting of green turtles, but in 1976 this was revised to allow an open season on males from March 1 to October 31, timed to coincide with the peak of nesting activity, from June to August.
The situation did not improve. As an example of the state of affairs back then, a biologist who visited Assomption in 1973 estimated that close to 100% of the females that nested on the island were killed. He described this as “outright rape of a resource”. In fact, closed seasons are very difficult to enforce for sea turtles. Meat can be salted and shell can be stored for years if necessary, making it impossible to know during which month a turtle was killed.
During historical periods when the laws protected only female turtles in Seychelles, typically male turtles were sent to Mahé while the females were consumed in the outer islands.
It was only in 1994, finally, that the Wild Animals (Turtles) Protection Regulations declared that no person may disturb, catch, injure, kill, sell, purchase or keep any turtle or turtle egg. Moreover, under that legislation, it became illegal for anyone to possess, sell or purchase turtle shell in any form without a special permit.”
Kare
The hawksbill turtle , locally known as kare was not usually eaten because the flesh has been known to contain toxins that are accumulated from the sponges and invertebrates that the turtle feeds on. It was harvested mainly for its shell. I will have a separate post the hawksbill turtle.
I will include some turtle dishes in this blog for interest sake only.
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