[ Daily Tolkien / Lord Of The Rings ] Pasta la feasta, baby

How much attention did J.R.R. Tolkien pay to food in Middle-earth? That question comes up fairly often, usually with respect to the Elves. Most people think the Elves were vegetarians, although nothing could be farther from the truth. Well, it's true that the Green-elves of Ossiriand didn't eat meat, but they're about the only ones.

As with so many other aspects of Middle-earth, Tolkien didn't limit himself in the kinds of dishes enjoyed by his characters. The hobbits snuck in a few distinctly "English" plates (such as the fish and chips Sam offered to cook for Gollum). But there were some exotic dishes on the menu. For example, the honey-cakes that Beorn gave to Thorin and Company have elicited a lot of curiosity from fans. What's the recipe?

I doubt Tolkien had a specific recipe in mind, to be honest. But he probably knew that honey is a pretty good food (for most people, but only a few ancient civilizations would have been concerned about diabetes). Honey even has medicinal properties, although I doubt Tolkien would have had his characters smear honey on their wounds (it's a natural antiseptic, used in ancient Egypt for that purpose).

In fact, honey cakes are a historical food, having been invented or improved upon by many cultures. Beorn's honey cakes have long intrigued Tolkien fans, who would love to try them, but I've never come across the Beorning honey cake recipe. I don't believe there was one, unless Tolkien had sampled a honey cake and decided to include it in his story about Bilbo Baggins.

Another food item Tolkien fans have wanted to know more about, of course, is lembas, the Elven waybread. Once again Tolkien failed to provide a specific recipe, but he did actually write something about the history of lembas. It was a sort of holy bread, baked from a meal produced from a special corn given to the Eldar on the Great Journey by the Valar. The corn only grew in secret gardens attended by Elven women called Yavannildi, or Ivonwin, "the maidens of Yavanna".

So, we Tolkien researchers are off the hook as far as lembas is concerned. Without access to the special corn, there is no way we can try to make it. However, Tolkien's description of the white corn implies strongly that it was similar to maize, so anyone who has eaten good, old-fashioned cornbread may have appreciated something as close to lembas as we can get.

The best estimates suggest we've been baking bread for 12,000 years or thereabouts. One retired farmer has even reportedly bred einkorn wheat, similar to the original strain used by Neolithic peoples. He apparently did this so that people who didn't want to eat processed breads could return to a more primitive, natural bread. I suppose it won't be long before we see loaves of Neolithic Meal (tm) on the shelves in specialty food stores.

Tea has graced our tables since 2737 BCE. People started eating mushrooms soon afterward, and potatoes hit the New World diet around 2500 BCE. Cheese and grapes go back about 6,000 years.

All these foods are mentioned by Tolkien. Did he check out some books on the history of cooking before writing his stories? I doubt it. But being a philologist who loved to base stories and elements of stories around words, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he knew the histories of these words. And if he knew there were ancient names for modern foods, then he knew those foods could be safely included in an imaginary time in our past.

Of course, Tolkien did let tomatoes, potatoes, and tobacco slip into Europe a few thousand years too soon, but he knew he was being a bit loose with the timeline. At the time he wrote The Lord of the Rings he was being fairly meticulous, but he didn't catch everything. He didn't really make food an important part of the story, although in the Prologue to LOTR, Tolkien said of Hobbits that "growing food and eating it occupied most of their time".

Readers should be forgiven for not knowing what kinds of foods are actually mentioned by Tolkien. For all the eating the hobbits seem to do in the story, the actual foods consumed are seldom named. But we do get an inventory of Barliman's menu on the night that Frodo and company arrived in Bree "hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, and half a ripe cheese good plain food, as good as the Shire could grow". (For what it's worth, tarts and pastries seem to date from the medieval or post-medieval period.)

As for what the Shire actually grew, well, Tolkien gave a small category of farm crops when Gandalf departed from Bag End "The Shire had seldom seen so fair a summer, or so rich an autumn the trees were laden with apples, honey was dripping in the combs, and the corn was tall and full." Okay, maybe Tolkien slipped up on the maize, too. But the word "corn" itself is pretty ancient and was actually used of other grain crops. Caesar spent a fair amount of time in Gaul trying to secure his corn supply, but he wasn't importing maize from the Americas.

Apples seemed to be popular with the Elves as much as with the Hobbits. When Gildor Inglorion and his folk hosted Frodo, Sam, and Pippin for a night in Woody End, they served the Hobbits apples, "bread, surpassing the flavor of a fair white loaf to one who is starving; and fruits sweet as wildberries and richer than the tended fruits of gardens." Fruits are actually good travelling food. Although they will eventually ripen, they don't need to be cooked or refrigerated. And you can sun-dry fruits so they last longer, but I don't think Gildor's people were serving dried fruit that night.

At Rivendell, Bilbo compared Hobbits and Men to peas and apples. Peas are another Neolithic food. Grishnakh seems to have read his Bible, since he tells Ugluk that the Nazgul are the "apple of the Great Eye". The Entwives liked apples, too, along with sloes (wild plums), cherries, and green herbs. These were among the kinds of plants the Entwives cultivated. And they also raised corn, teaching Men how to grow it.

Bombadil and Goldberry kept a pretty good larder, too. They served the Hobbits "yellow cream and honeycomb, white bread, and butter, milk, and cheese, and green herbs and ripe berries gathered." There is a distinct lack of meat in their diet, and I suspect Tom and Goldberry might have been vegetarians. The butter and cream had to come from one or more cows. Or maybe goats.

In Gondor, Pippin was treated to white cakes by Denethor, and to bread, butter, cheese, and apples by Beregond and Targon. The presence of butter and cheese implies that the Gondorians raised cattle and/or goats. But they were a pretty advanced civilization. When Frodo and Sam were fed at Henneth Annun, Faramir's men treated them to "pale yellow wine" and "bread and butter, and salted meats, and dried fruits, and good red cheese." Faramir later gave them "dried fruits, and salted meats, enough for many days; and bread enough to last while it was still fresh" for their journey into Mordor.

Butchers developed the technique of salting meats to preserve their unsold meats over weekends. The ancient civilizations of China and the Mediterranean basin developed salting techniques for tanning hides and preserving fish, as well as smoking techniques for preserving meats through the winter months.

We know a little bit more about Faramir's meats prepared for travellers. Sam pulls out "a small slip of cured meat" for Frodo and himself in Mordor (along with dried fruit). The "small slip" sounds vaguely like some sort of beef jerky.

The production of foods in Middle-earth seems to be very carefully thought out. There is even a little salt-box that Sam carried with him (mentioned in "The Ring Goes South" as the Company prepares to leave Rivendell). Merry and Pippin found "first-rate salted pork" and "rashers of bacon" in Saruman's stores. The food most likely came from the Shire, since Saruman seems not to have been doing business with Gondor. But where would the Hobbits get their salt?

The answer must be the Dwarves, who in turn had to bring it in from the coastlands. It's doubtful the Dwarves would have concerned themselves with working salt mines, but the Elves probably produced the commodity. If nothing else, it would give them something to trade to the Dwarves, although they probably needed it, too.

Salt production is a tricky thing in coastal areas. It requires a stable environment with plenty of sunshine and warm breezes; Britain was able to produce its own salt during Roman times (in part because sea levels were ideal for that sort of thing). Salt production in Europe dropped off during the Middle Ages because the sea levels began rising, ruining the old salt beds. Tolkien's use of salt is a tribute to the attention he paid to creating a historically credible world.

Middle-earth's economics are difficult to fathom, but it's plain that there must have been quite an export business in the Shire at the end of the Third Age. Saruman had to feed an army, and the Hobbits no doubt would have been glad to sell their surplus crops. But the production and distribution of food also implies that agriculture and food preparation were altogether different matters in Dunland and the Shire. That is, Saruman recruited many Dunlendings into his service, but how much did he rely upon Dunland for supplies? If he was willing to send as far away as the Shire, then he was verging on desperation.

Logistics is probably the one aspect of war that Tolkien really didn't deal with adequately. That is, we know that Saruman was importing food from the Shire, and that Henneth Annun was well-stocked with dried fruits and cured meats. But how was Aragorn's army supplied? His 7,000 men would have eaten the equivalent of about 3 pounds of food a day. That's 21,000 pounds of food every day from March 18 through May 1 (roughly speaking -- Aragorn was crowned before the gates of Minas Tirith on May 1).

All Sauron really had to do to defeat Aragorn was to cut his supply lines. Aragorn would have had to retreat or make a mad charge into Mordor, looking for food. Theoden's army of about 6,000 Riders of Rohan could have carried enough food with them to get to Minas Tirith (5-6 days' worth, about 12-18 pounds per Rider), but the horses would have required a tremendous amount of forage.

Of course, Beowulf and Menelaus don't stop in the midst of their epic poems to discuss supply details with their sergeants. They summon their warriors and go, and the audience is expected to understand that the guys had food. Eating is only important to the characters when the story isn't being told. When the poet is singing of raging battles, marching armies, and proud kings and princes, he neglects to point out the mile-long baggage train bringing up the rear.

Middle-earth cuisine probably seems a bit sparse by modern western standards. We can dine out every night at a different style restaurant (finances permitting) in most major cities Italian, French, American, Greek, Chinese, Mexican, and specialty restaurants are very common. Food doesn't have to be fast as long as it's prepared by someone else. In fact, the ancient Romans had a pretty good franchise on restaurants and fast food.

Rome supported a very large population, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Feeding all those people required a lot of resources. But the Romans found early on during the Imperial period that letting everyone have their own kitchen was dangerous. Although the Romans were good at building with stone, the fact is that many of their houses were built on wood frames. All it took to start a major fire was one tilted brazier or one untended hearth. Rome had a very large and semi-professional fire fighting force (which, sadly, became corrupt and not only charged for putting out fires, but also started a few to help keep the money flowing).

After a major fire burned large parts of the city, the Romans stopped building apartments with hearths. Dining out became a daily ritual. Intrepid cooks set up shop along the streets, with little fast food restaurants where they would cook meals for passersby. The clientele sat on stools or stood at counters and ate the food prepared right before them. It would have been a very appealing lifestyle to many westerners, although the public toilet facilities seemed to consider modesty unimportant.

Middle-earth's larger cities would have had to sport similar dining arrangements. In fact, the infamous cliched tavern one encounters in numerous fantasy novels is a nod toward the ancient custom. Taverns never quite went out of style because it was just too dangerous to have everyone cooking in their own homes. And, to be honest, how many families could afford to kill a whole cow and save the meat? Taverns and inns which served food along with beer, ale, and wine served a vital economic purpose.

Tolkien acknowleged the vitality of taverns by scattering them around the Shire. Gondor and Rohan most likely had plenty of taverns, too. But taverns served a social purpose beyond simply serving food and drink. They were gathering places for the local communities. Barliman's common hall in the Prancing Pony may in fact have served as the local post office, courthouse, and meeting room for the elders of Bree. But these matters were not important to Frodo's journey.

Armies don't gather at taverns, despite the fact that any role-playing gamer can probably recall having a character saunter into the local tavern and recruit a dozen or so men-at-arms for the task of taking out that dragon down the street. In all probability, though, places like the Prancing Pony were probably the chief source for provisions for travelers.

The business of food production and distribution had to be one of the most profitable in Middle-earth. If all other trades declined, people would still need to eat. Farmers would still need a place to sell or trade their food. Someone would still know of a town just beyond the horizon where families were hungry enough to pay for imports. The Bree-land had only four villages and though there must have been plenty of farms, Bree undoubtedly had to import products from the Shire. Especially salt (unless the Dwarves brought it directly to Bree).

Unfortunately (or fortunately), Frodo's journey after Bree never took him to another inn. He either roughed it in the wild or was treated to dinner by royalty (Elrond in Rivendell, Galadriel and Celeborn in Lothlorien, Aragorn in Minas Tirith). The layover at Henneth Annun was a fluke (though it could be said that Faramir, a prince of Gondor, was extending a similar courtesy to Frodo). Merry and Pippin got to enjoy the spoils of war, feasting on the remains of Saruman's stores. Clearly, it paid to have friends with powerful armies.

Hence, when Frodo leaves the familiarity and comfort of Bree behind, the reader says farewell to what could have been an endless array of inns and taverns with meaningless common room encounters (or avoidances). Instead, the journey was made largely in secret and as an extended camping trip. Middle-earth no doubt seems to be so empty because Gandalf and Aragorn insisted on avoiding as many people as possible.

Rivendell seems pretty innish, though, and I sometimes wonder if The Last Homely House East of the Sea wasn't, in fact, an Elvish inn. So what if Elrond had the blood of kings and angels running in his veins? An Elf has to make a living, too. And his days of leading armies were over. Everyone seems to have stopped by there Dunedain, Elves, Dwarves, wizards. Heck, even Bilbo set up shop after a couple of layovers. He was clearly part of the local entertainment. Elrond may have had Bilbo on permanent retainer just so he'd maintain control over the Hobbit craze.

As far-fetched as that may seem, Elrond's chief economic function in Middle-earth does appear to have been to provide a specialized road-house or inn. Maybe only very important travelers stayed there, but he was a Half-elf with a mission to help defeat the Dark Lord. Ensuring that people running around the wild had a warm bed and a few good meals in the midst of their journeys was probably as good a contribution as he could make.

After all, armies travel on their stomachs. So do Hobbits, Dwarves, and Wizards. And Elrond seems to have been making a few silver pennies off his vinyards, or orchards. It's not clear what miruvor was made from, but Gandalf called it the "cordial of Imladris". A cordial is a liqueur (liquor). Elrond was supplying the goods, for sure.

That probably doesn't satisfy anyone's desire to find the recipe for lembas, but at least if someone asks you what people ate in Middle-earth you now have a better idea. They ate "good plain food". Just like us. Pass the peas, please. I'm getting hungry.

Author: Michael Martinez
Published on: February 11, 2001
Michael Martinez is the author of Visualizing Middle-earth

Your Daily Tolkien Ping!

Coming from many sources, these articles cover many aspects of Tolkien and his literary works. If anyone would like for me to ping them directly when I post articles such as this let me know. Enjoy!

The Daily Tolkien articles:

ARTICLES 1-10

11) He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water by Michael Martinez

12) All About Sam by Quickbeam

13) Count, count, weigh, divide by Michael Martinez

14) Real orcs don't do windows by Michael Martinez

15) Olog-hai Fidelity by Mister Underhill

16) Middle-earth Connections: Lore of the Rings by Michael Martinez

17) Pasta la feasta, baby by Michael Martinez

I am curious to know if anyone knows of any other sites with essays/articles about Tolkien and his works.

I still have plenty of articles to go before I exhaust my sources, but I would like to get even more points of view by as many other writers as possible.

So, if you have seen an article here or there or even a website devoted to them, let me know about it.

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