Jugging is the process of stewing whole animals, mainly

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or fish, for an extended period in a tightly covered container such as a

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or an earthenware jug. In France a similar stew of a game animal (historically thickened with the animal's blood) is known as a .

Jugged hare

Jugged hare (a similar stew is known as in France), a common dish involving jugging, is a whole

hare Hares and jackrabbits are mammals belonging to the genus ''Lepus''. They are herbivores and live Solitary animal, solitarily or in pairs. They nest in slight depressions called forms, and their young are precociality, able to fend for themselves ...

, cut into pieces, marinated and cooked with red wine and

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in a tall jug that stands in a pan of water. It is traditionally served with the hare's blood, or the blood is added at the end of the cooking process, and

port wine Port wine (, ; ), or simply port, is a Portuguese wine, Portuguese fortified wine produced in the Douro, Douro Valley of Norte, Portugal, northern Portugal. It is typically a sweetness of wine, sweet red wine, often served with dessert wine, ...

First catch your hare by John Doyle nowatermarks

Jugged hare is described in the influential 18th-century cookbook '' The Art of Cookery'', by Hannah Glasse. Beginning in the nineteenth century, Glasse has been widely credited with having started the recipe with the words "First, catch your hare". This attribution is apocryphal. Her actual directions are, "Take your Hare when it is cas'd, and make a pudding ..." To 'case' means to take off the skin ot "to catch" Both the ''

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'' and '' The Dictionary of National Biography'' discuss the attribution. However, having a freshly caught, or shot, hare enables one to obtain its blood. A freshly killed hare is prepared for jugging by removing its entrails and then hanging it in a

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by its hind legs, which causes the blood to accumulate in the chest cavity. One method of preserving the blood after draining it from the hare (since the hare itself is usually hung for a week or more) is to mix it with red wine vinegar in order to prevent it

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, and then to store it in a freezer. Many other British cookbooks from before the middle of the 20th century have recipes for jugged hare. Merle and Reitch have this to say about jugged hare, for example: In 2006, a survey of 2021 people for the television channel UKTV Food found that only 1.6% of the people aged under 25 recognized jugged hare by name. 7 out of 10 of those people stated that they would refuse to eat jugged hare if it were served at the house of a friend or a relative.

Civet de lapin

Civet de lapin ( rabbit stew) is an alternative to ''civet de lièvre''. It is considered a speciality of the cuisine of

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Jugged kippers

Another jugged dish, also traditional in the

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, is jugged kippers, which is kippers (with the heads and tails removed) in a covered jug, cooked in boiling water. Recipe books recommend jugging kippers as one way of avoiding the strong smell that kippers have.

Jugged hare

Civet de lapin

Jugged kippers

See also

References

Further reading