LOTR food

[Rían]

some interesting research being done with spider silk ... interesting stuff!

[Nurvingiel]

Yeah, maybe the Mirkwood elves do export it, they have quite a handy supply. I heard that spider silk as thick as a rope would need 40 000 pounds to break it.

Bilbo must have been really handy with Sting! Of course, the breakage amount doesn't include slicing.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Balin got tossed into the dungeon for implying the elves had an arrangement with the spiders. And the power of Sting was partly because elves had been deadly enemies with the old spiders, right? So it's kind of pushing it to see them selling it.

I figure rather, the Mirkwood elves were sort of on a "rough duty" military posting (colonial) from the masses of stable elves further south. Much like later Roman Empire outposts in GB and so forth, they made do with some goodies from home, some local hunting, charging tolls on the route through Mirkwood, and miscellaneous theft from the dwarves (It must be said.)

[The last sane person]

Perhaps they get the silk from dead spiders?

Anyways, that has little to do with the lack of hard liquor! Okay, strong wine doesn't cut it, for those of you who will point to the elf guards getting sloshed in the Hobbit. Heh, perhaps they just couldn't hold their booze?

[Rían]

methinks Nurv was kidding about the spider silk ...

I think Michael Martinez had some good essays about MEarth food - I'll have to go dig them up.

[Lotesse]

This topic of middle-earth food really got me thinking last night, and today, in an effort to furthur procrastinate finishing my English homework, I thought I'd try and find some descriptions out of my LotR book of those Elvish feasts the fellowship kept finding themselves at. Maybe I haven't looked carefully enough, but I could not find any descriptions, just that the feasts were marvelous, etc., but no descriptions of the actual food laid out at the feast, either the one at Rivendell or the one at Lothlorien. Am i not looking closely enough; am I missing something?

So I did a quick google-search, and found nothing but Lembas for descriptions of elvish food. It's the elvish cuisine that I'm truly curious about. Oh - I did learn that Lembas is made from a type of corn that the elves cultivate themselves, some special corn that they brought with them to middle-earth. That was interesting. Magic power-corn.

[Tessar]

Ooooookay, sorry if some people didn't like my description of how I imagine the different races would cook.

Certain people seriously need to lighten up.

[Nurvingiel]

I was only half-kidding about the spider silk. They could harvest the silk from the webs they're always leaving all over the darn place. However, the elves wouldn't do it because they'd find everything to do with the spiders completely repulsive. Also, the technology of the elves and men isn't at the point where they would use spider silk for anything - neither are we over here.

Originally Posted by Tessar

Ooooookay, sorry if some people didn't like my description of how I imagine the different races would cook.

Certain people seriously need to lighten up.

What are you seeing in this thread that I am missing?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

I can see a lot of spices compatible with some of these descriptions of "English food." Sure, climate-wise, they're probably not big on Mediterranean spices, or tomato based sauces and such. But they have to have enough sun for some winemaking, as well as the thriving beer, ale, and stout production. Every pub and farmstead would have their own boutique ales and had to be some mead brewing around, as well as ciders and perrys.

But even within climate limitations, I'm sure there were Tookish stores of exotic spices like pepper and cinnamon. Stands to reason, that's the kind of folk they were, and not far from the Grey Havens or Bree. So I'm seeing that as the source of really good spiced sausage and mulled ale, and perhaps even some Shire versions of Branston Pickle.

Sane, I'm , personally, sure the Wizards and elves both drank distilled spirits. Dwarves, too probably. Anyone who had enough metal working to inlay mithril steel in rock faces had the engineering to run a still, and did. But they wouldn't necessarily share the secrets of that with lesser folk. I don't think the hobbits did, mostly because they're just not much past simple machines, kwim? And their micro-climate variations would make brewing a more compatible industry for competition and skill building.

I've got a wiki quote about the Izarra
"There are two varieties of Izarra: yellow Izarra is of 32 herbs with a predominantly almond taste and is 40 proof; green Izarra with 48 herbs has a peppermint taste and is stronger at 48 proof. Pyrenean herbs and other flavouring ingredients are used in a fifteen-month process to produce the liqueur. Four different liquids are produced: alcohol distilled with herbal flavourings; a liquid resulting from the soaking of prunes and walnut shells in armagnac; syrup of sugar and local acacia honey; and a colouring infusion of saffron for the yellow and several plants for the green variety. The liqueur matures for six months in barrels before it is bottled."

As I've said, that's got "Hobby for elves" written all over it.

But don't just dismiss the potential of serious mead. That stuff has legs.

Back to Hobbits and herbs, there are an awful lot of temperate climate herbs used in cooking. I doubt Samwise, and his gardening family, were eating dreadful overboiled potatoes. Gardeners don't do that, any more than people who run a goat dairy eat velveeta. The culture was all ABOUT the pleasures of the table... I'm expecting good things.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Jonathan

Actually I was impressed enough to look ipse dixit up. It means we should take what Tessar said with a pinch of salt
In my mind they didn't use much spices or herbs at all. I think they made great cakes and pastry for dessert.

Lotesse: Ipse dixit is a Latinism that is used (or so my Latin tutor told me) in English to a fair extent, to the point that, as Jonathan pointed out, there is in fact an English word Ipsedixitism. I was not trying to put on airs. It means "He himself said it", and was used by the disciples of a master to refer to his authority, thereby probably ending argument, so that it would be roughly equivalent in philosophy to the ecclesiastical "Rome has spoken, the case is closed". By no means was it intended as a sort of "intellectualism" which would certainly have been pseudo, as you note. I was actually unaware of the sort of opposite meaning which it has taken; I meant it as a sort of tongue-in-cheek deferral to the authority of Tessar. I don't care to speculate on Middle-earth cuisine, as I think that, aside from potatoes, herbs and rabbits, lembas, etc., it would be completely speculation, though I do find some of the ideas put forth.

! Okay, strong wine doesn't cut it, for those of you who will point to the elf guards getting sloshed in the Hobbit. Heh, perhaps they just couldn't hold their booze?

More likely, they had just had quite a lot. Or maybe it was a sort of fortified wine, like port.

But actually, I could live happily with wine and beer. I like hard liquors (or at least some, like brandy and some whiskeys), but wine and beer (esp. wine) are the biggies for me.

[Lotesse]

O.K., babe, thanks for that description. Man, it'd be so cool to have an education in Latin, even a rudimentary Latin education would be, I think, indispensible. I was just giving you a bit of the ol' hard time, baby; thanks for being so cool to take the time to explain it to me & us all. You're a good sport, Gwai! Grazi, babe.

You know, I could totally see the elves being all mysterious and elevated about creating exotic liqueurs, sort of like Benedictine monks, you know? Secretly turning out masterpiece liqueurs that nobody else could figure out how to make...

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Benedictines are good, but you just can't beat the Carthusians! It's so cool that the recipe for Chartreuse is only known by three monks...and these monks are bound by vows of silence...

[The last sane person]

Man, how do they pass it down then? Or is it reinvented every time the three silent guardians die?

And about liquors... I still dont think they'd have Vodka or whiskey or rum... It also just doesnt fit with the time period of LOTR.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

This vow A) is rescinded for a few hours once a week, and B) is not as strictly enforced as it could be; for instance, the Carthusians do speak sometimes for the purposes of work. I'm sure it's passed down that way.

Or, they could write it down.

It doesn't fit with the time of LOTR, but neither do clocks.

[The last sane person]

True enough, it seems that the different races are in different time periods.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

More than that, I think it's just that there are a number of anachronisms. Although granted, they do seem more prevalent among the Hobbits.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

when a Luddite describes Paradise.

[The last sane person]

So it seems. Man, I could do with a Haradrim style curry right about now... With maybe some Nurn wine if that's the best they have.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Hum. Might need to make a little naan, tonight.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Let's hear it for the Luddites!