Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Ruffs and Reeves.— These little birds, of which the rufi: is the male and the reeve is the female, take their name from the long feathers which stand round the neck of the male bird, in appearance slightly resembling the ruifs worn by ladies. Ruffs are birds of passage, and are caught in traps, and when fattened on meal and milk are esteemed a great delicacy. They should not be drawn, and should be trussed like woodcook. To prepare them, run a small skewer through the thighs and pinions, lay over the bodies of the birds a slice of fat bacon and a vine-leaf, run them on a lark-spit, and put them down before a clear fire. Baste well with butter, and put a slice of toast in the tin under the birds to receive the drippiags from the trail. When done enough, dish them on the same toast with a little brown gravy under them, and more in a tureen. Garnish the dish with watercresses, and send bread sauce to table. Time to roast the birds, ten to fifteen minutes. Probable cost uncertain, ruffs being seldom offered for sale. Ruff, Fattening of the.—" The ruff is taken for the table in spring, but young birds taken in autumn are much to be preferred. They are often fattened after being taken, and are fed on bread and milk, with bruised hempseed. After being fattened they are sent to market. They feed readily when quite newly caught, and tight desperately for their food, unless supplied in separate dishes, which is therefore the regular practice of the feeders, who find it also advantageous to keep them in darkened apartments. The ruff is gradually becoming scarcer in England, owing to the destruction of its favourite haunts, the fens, by drainage." Ruff or Pope. — This fish spawns in April, and is in season all the year. Its excellence as a fish for the table excited the enthusiasm of Dr. Kitchiner. The ruff is thus alluded to in Izaac Walton's famous " Complete Angler": — "There is also another fish called a pope, and by some a ruff, a fish that is not known to be in some rivers. He is much hke the perch for his shape, and taken to be better than the perch, but will not grow to be bigger than a gudgeon ; he is an excellent fish ; no fish that swims is of a pleasanter taste, and he is also excellent to enter a young angler, for he is a greedy biter, and they will usually lie abundance of them together, in one reserved place where the water is deep and runs quietly ; and an easy angler. RUG (776) RUM if he has found where they lie, may catch forty or fifty, or sometimes twice as many, at a standing." Ruglen Cream. — This is another name sometimes given to the old-fashioned preparation named Corstorphine, the recipe for making which is given in another portion of this book. It is an open question whether the cream was originally made in Corstorphine, near Edinburgh, or in the borough of Rutherglen (whence Rutherglen), in Lanarkshire.