The Mock Turtle sings “Beautiful Soup” in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Alice meets the Mock Turtle beside the Gryphon during the trial-related episodes near the end of the book. The melancholy creature tells her about its supposedly unhappy education under the sea, then performs a song praising “beautiful soup,” a comic parody of a sentimental Victorian song.
The character’s name is itself a joke. Mock turtle soup was a real Victorian dish made from ingredients such as calf’s head and feet to imitate the flavor and appearance of turtle soup. John Tenniel’s illustration combines a turtle-like body with calf-like features, reinforcing the culinary pun.
The Gryphon is present during the scene, which can cause confusion, but it is the Mock Turtle who sings. The passage is also sometimes remembered as “Turtle Soup,” because that phrase appears in the song’s refrain.