LOTR food

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Does anyone have any feelings/thoughts about food in the LOTR stories? I mean, I'd love to sit down to a nice second breakfast with Sam and Rosie, or be invited to a special occasion with the Master of Buckland, but I think about the other traditions, too.

For example, even though they're associated so strongly with the plains, I can't help but see some Danish influences in the rohirrim. I know Eowyn made a mean aebleskiver(no matter that PJ dissed her cooking.) But what happened to traditional Gondorian cooking when they lost Ithilien? What are the regional differences between Mirkwood and Lothlorien cooking?

Okay. Maybe I'm the only one.

[The last sane person]

I dunno, when I think Human and Elvish food, I think of blandy English cooking. I always have. Give me the spices of the Haradrim or something. I would go bonkers with the significant lack of Kabobs and vodka.

I dunno if the elves or men of western middle earth had anything stronger than ale, wine or mead.

[Lotesse]

I've always loved the idea of pure, simple Hobbit fare, utterly pretension-free ideal comfort food. Perfectly organic cheeses, aged meats, pies, breads, sausages, vegetables, cakes, etcetera, oh yes... Elvish food sounds bland and boring to me, I can't even imagine what these other-worldly beings would eat, just boring glorified food, sort of like snobby Parisien Michelin-chef cooking, all snobby and complicated and high on itself, not real or comforting or down-to-earth. Give me Hobbit-food any day over that boring high-concept snobby Elvish food any day!

Great idea for a thread, SisterAunt. I've been loving all your posts for a while, since you joined here, incidentally. I do a lot more reading than I ever do posting at this board any more, but, suffice it to say I've noticed each & every one of your posts, Sister, and I love, love love your voice & your points of view. You're wonderful, just awesome. Love ya, baby!

Wouldn't it be cool to have a Middle-Earth inspired cookbook published, which described all the regional cuisine types and included recipes from each culture? Hell yeah! I've always thought this would be a fun idea. I'd definitely buy such a book, especially if it had photographic illustrations of the dishes.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by The last sane person

I dunno if the elves or men of western middle earth had anything stronger than ale, wine or mead.

Dear me, that is a problem.

[Tessar]

In my mind:

Hobbits make just about any and everything, from simple foods to complex cakes and such. But almost everything will have heavy herbs and spices.

The elves would be big on salads and fresh, juicy fruit. When they have meat, it'll be fairly well cooked (nothing quite so unelvish as having blood drip down your fork as you eat ) and with just a few light spices so that you enjoy the flavor of the meat over anything else. Also lots of birds. Gotta do something with those bows . I imagine anything they eat will be beautifully done and presented with flare.

Dwarves are big on lightly-cooked meat . Not much else. Just the meat. And beer.

Men are... kind of... whatevah. I imagine the various cultures will influence their cooking styles more.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Ipse dixit.

[Lotesse]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Ipse dixit.

What? Speak English, Gwaimir. No one is impressed with your pseudo-intellectual sounding command of ancient Latin. Do you have something relevant or real to say about the cuisine of Middle Earth, in the commonly used language of this here message-board, that is, ENGLISH?

[Jonathan]

Actually I was impressed enough to look ipse dixit up. It means we should take what Tessar said with a pinch of salt

Originally Posted by Tessar

Hobbits make just about any and everything, from simple foods to complex cakes and such. But almost everything will have heavy herbs and spices.

In my mind they didn't use much spices or herbs at all. I think they made great cakes and pastry for dessert.

[Lotesse]

I know, exactly, I was just thinking the same thing. I don't recall hobbit cuisine being heavy whatsoever on spices; maybe a few wild herbs for seasoning stews and such like Sam did when they were stuck out in the friggin' wilderness tryna make wild coney soup, but they were in the equivalent of what could loosely be considered the Sicilian outback of Middle Earth when Sam was trying to make that coney stew.

Back home, I don't see hobbit-food as being much for exotic spices or fancy southern herbs at all, more like rich on the creams of livestock, the cheeses, and the fresh vegetables of the soil, and fresh chicken-eggs and wholesome baked breads and muffins and pies and berries and apples and whatnot, but none of those intense, fancy-schmancy spices & herbs. No southern climed herbs, anyway. Maybe leeks and chives, maybe dill and mint, but other than that, what herbs would hobbits use, on a regular daily basis, from their own natural home surroundings?

Tessar - I see Elves as mostly being moralistic vegan-types, not keen on eating animals at all, especially those hippie-commune elves where Galadriel reigned supreme. Buncha hippie vegans, those elves. I don't see them eating hunted birds, not those particular elves anyway. They just strike me as the quintessential vegans, like, model cruelty-free love and purity vegan-types. They'd be chowing on dandelion salad and rose-petal soup, and roasted honeydew melons with pear and sarsaparilla puree, and stuff like that. No animals, no flesh or blood. They'd be the original raw cooks.

[Lotesse]

Haradrim food would be awesome, maybe kind of like a cross between spicy Indian curry-type food and South-American/Spanish cuisine, full of peppers and corn and beans and fire.

Orc food would just be pretty straight-forwardly repulsive.Rotten rat, grubs, fly larvae, stuff like that, nothing to write home about.

Gondorian cuisine might be rather like northern Italian/alps-like food, very sophisticated and rich, yet with a comforting provincial twist, with a lot of wild meat and mushrooms used, and fresh-made pastas and a lot of exotic herbs since they had access to the water and so spice & herb trade might not have been too uncommon, for Gondor. They might have even been almost like the Venice of their time & place, a port-principality which had wealth and access to the offerings of so many distant and exotic countries and their foods, spices, textiles etc.

[Earniel]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

Tessar - I see Elves as mostly being moralistic vegan-types, not keen on eating animals at all, especially those hippie-commune elves where Galadriel reigned supreme. Buncha hippie vegans, those elves. I don't see them eating hunted birds, not those particular elves anyway.

I do seem to remember some references to some Elves liking hunting, so I would imagine meat was part of their diet.

But one thing I do find hard to imagine is seeing Elves farm. There's no hint of mention (that I can remember) about it either. Rivendell didn't seem to have any fields and they might have given away the location of hidden Rivendell. Lothlórien's forest is hard to reconcile with grown fields and the same goes for Mirkwood. Where did the Elves get their grains, I wonder.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

moved food up past the Rivermen. I suspect their granaries were down there. Venison, one assumes, was a frequent part of their diet, if you figure all that deer hunting had an outcome. But they weren't making Lembas out of venison. Mirkwood being so contaminated, I think the Mirkwood elves must have been fishers, too...river was probably full of weirs. But their reliance on wine and butter indicates to me that their tastes were formed in a warmer climate, and probably there were more 'farming oriented' tribes of them still in the South. They clearly had trade, but what they were trading I'm a little unclear on.

I wouldn't be all that surprised to find that Ithilien was the remnant of the Entwives planting. They wouldn't necessarily have made themselves known to the locals when blossoming rowan brakes appeared. And men have short memories.

I definitely have the feeling Galadriel's crew was a little more "high culture" than the Northern Elves , and that probably extended to their food. So maybe a more Basque style would be my pick for the Elves in general, affected by their regional differences, and years of trade, but still retaining the basic elements of its roots. Izarra would totally be an elf drink.

[The Telcontarion]

remember when Sam was looking for herbs in Ithilien to cook the rabbit, he was looking for wild herbs. Indeed the chapter itself is called "of herbs and stewed rabbit."

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Lotesse

What? Speak English, Gwaimir. No one is impressed with your pseudo-intellectual sounding command of ancient Latin. Do you have something relevant or real to say about the cuisine of Middle Earth, in the commonly used language of this here message-board, that is, ENGLISH?

Can I put in a request for you to stop the Italian, then, and speak "in the commonly used language of this here message-board, that is, ENGLISH"?

Or I guess we can just assume that both of you just enjoy those languages. *shrug*

Great line about the salt, Gwai!

About the wine - what, have you guys forgotten your Hobbit?

From The Hobbit - Barrels out of Bond
It must be potent wine to make a wood-elf drowsy; but this wine, it would seem, was the heady vintage of the great gardens of Dorwinion, not meant for his soldiers or his servants, but for the king's feasts only, and for small bowls not for the butler's great flagons.

[Rían]

I just remembered another couple of things about elvish food - in the magically-made feast described in Hobbit right before the spiders, he mentioned "roast meats". In the LOTR one, it only specifically mentioned breads and fruit and drinks. I'll have to try and remember Sil and HoME stuff...

oh, and speaking of elf/human differences ...

An Elf and a Ranger were camping out in Eriador one night. As they lay in their blankets, the Elf nudged the Ranger and said, "Look up, my friend, and tell me what you see."
"I see stars," replied the Ranger. "A vast multitude of bright, shining stars."
"And what does that tell you?" the Elf asked?
Sensing a deeper purpose behind the Elf's question, the Ranger gazed upward thoughtfully for a moment and said, "Well, I think it means that the universe is immense, and that the Valar must have labored many ages before settling in Arda."
"Hm," the Elf said quietly. The Ranger decided he had not given the proper answer, so he cast his gaze westward and beheld the bright light of Earendil's star.
"And it also tells me that we are all part of a great tale, ever unfolding, adding layer of challenge and adventure upon layer," he added quickly.
"I see," said the Elf, and he said nothing more. But the Ranger, realizing he had not guessed the Elf's purpose, gave up and asked with great exasperation, "Well, then, what does it tell you, that we see the stars?"
"It tells me," said the Elf as he turned to his companion, "that someone has stolen our tent."

[Nurvingiel]

When does Lotesse write in Italian?


Anyway, I would love so much to sit down to a proper rabbit stew, as made by Sam Gamgee, with all the ingredients he desires including taters.

That would be the best ever.

I would also love to try Haradrim food, as others have mentioned.

I bet the Elves of Mirkwood traded for grain - they did trade their famous wine for other things with the men of the Dale, after all.

Do you think Dwarves don't need to eat vegetables?

[Rían]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

When does Lotesse write in Italian?

I guess you've missed a lot of her posts. Lots of them have the "bella"s and "grazi"s and "ciao"s in them, and she'll also do Italian sentences sometimes, so I thought it was pretty inconsistent of her to chide Gwai about using Latin. Live and let live, or do as Jonathan did and look it up and learn

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

"differed from the High Elves of the West...most of them (together with their scattered relations in the hills and mountains) were descended from the ancient tribes that never went to Faerie in the West."

"If the elf-king had a weakness it was for treasure...his people neither mined nor worked metals or jewels, nor did they bother much with trade or with tilling the earth."

gave Thorin bread and meat and water. (all from The Hobbit, "flies and spiders")

"Barrels out of bond" says, "...the Wood-elves, and especially their king, were very fond of wine, though no vines grew in those parts. The wine, and other goods, were brought from far away, from their kinsfolk in the South, or from the vinyards of Men in distant lands."

In his parting from the Elven King, Bilbo thanks him for "wine and bread," but I would, personally, here stand with "loose constructionists" in regarding that as emblematic of "hospitality", rather than as a literal menu.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Do you think Dwarves don't need to eat vegetables?

I'm seeing Dwarvish food as much closer in spirit to German cooking. Pickled fruits and cabbage, heavy stews, various dumplings and spaetzle type noodles. The dwarves are excited about the roasting meats of the elvish circle, indeed. But considering that their favored dwellings are underground (instead of the arboreal elves, say), I'd bet they relied more on stored food.

Barley. Gimli ate barley, I'm sure.

[Nurvingiel]

I've missed the Italian sentences posts, yes. I know what "ciao" "grazi" and "bella" mean, and I don't speak Italian!


I think I got the wine thing backwards. They must trade goods for wine from the men of the Dale. But there is a lot of trade there, so I'm sure they could obtain grain and other agricultiral products.

I wonder what they trade - wood products? Lumber? Non-timber forest products such as mushrooms and plants? Spider silk?