well, after a little research, i found out that the Mock Turtle in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was named so after a popular victorian dish - Mock Turtle Soup! how oddso here is the recipe:
Mrs. Fowle's Mock Turtle Soup: "Take a large calf's head. Scald off the hair. Boil it until the horn is tender, then cut it into slices about the size of your finger, with as little lean as possible. Have ready three pints of good mutton or veal broth, put in it half a pint of Madeira wine, half a teaspoonful of thyme, pepper, a large onion, and the peel of a lemon chop't very small. A ¼ of a pint of oysters chop't very small, and their liquor; a little salt, the juice of two large onions, some sweet herbs, and the brains chop't. Stand all these together for about an hour, and send it up to the table with the forcemeat balls made small and the yolks of hard eggs."*
and i've never actually had mock turtle soup, but it really sounds rather nasty! no wonder he was always crying...
as Lewis Carroll's character goes, however, the mock turtle was upset because he used to be a real turtle, but now he is a fake turtle. this is why he was illustrated by John Tenniel as an assemblage of the cow head, hooves and tail, the traditional off-cuts of the beast and the non-muscular parts to imitate turtle meat in the soup.
poor thing...
* courtesy wikipedia
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