all freshwater andsea turtles are edible in America - Box turtles in America are wandering land turtles that eat poisonous plants, making meat extremely poisonous, mainly mushrooms. the gopher turtle here is caught and fed for a few days to get rid of any waste food products, and turtle benifits from doing this. fresh water turtles have meat in the legs and under the spine plate, which most people miss entirely because it is under the inside spine plate, they just dont know nor see the meat, it is the tenderlion.
pop head with a putting golf whack to drive head back in shelll. this kills it fast. cut off head and bleed the thing. cut off claw feet, as they can cut you. they move around for hours. break open plate in a cross pattern, then on rim of shell, knife placed on shell, then whack with log hammer until cut through. skin back plates, remove the yellow filter toxin sacs, that filter out crap from food and water, it tainted the meat. all yellow throw out. remove guts. dig out each foot after skinning it, cut through the joints. and run knife around shell iside. the spine meat needs to be popped out with knife and log hammer, then dig under the shell to remove the best part of the turtle. small turtles is a waste of time. parboil hem before frying to kill any parasite, and makes tender. fry them, or make soup out of them, boiling for hours until meat falls from the bones. jaw of most dead turtles bite way after dead, so cut the jaw check meat out, which is very tender and tasty, but never let a kd play with a cut off head, it will cut your finger off if the turtle is big enough. hope that helps out.
turtle eggs by the way never get hard, so you better like running eggs.