BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR

Subject: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Naemanson
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 11:48 AM

I am re-reading The Hobbit and recently realized that some of the foods mentioned by Tolkien should have recipes. I would be very surprised if someone came up with a recipe for LEMBAS or Ent draughts but I'm guessing that seed cakes, twice baked cakes, etc. are actually foods Tolkien may have known.

So, does anyone have any recipes to offer for such foods as are mentioned in LOTR?

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 12:14 PM

Or Cony stew?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 12:28 PM

Click here

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Don Firth
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 12:28 PM

Cony or Coney, unless I'm badly mistaken, is rabbit.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: MMario
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 12:33 PM

recipe for lembas

who ate what in the middle earth

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 12:34 PM

Apart from those listed in the link by Guest,

"Twice baked cakes": surely these are biscuits. The dictionary gives :
biscuit: a small thin crisp cake of unleavened dough....[O.Fr. bescoit (mod. biscuit) - L. bis, twice, coquere, coctum, to cook or bake.]

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: MMario
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 12:38 PM

see this ad for cook book

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Raedwulf
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 05:06 PM

"Southfarthing BBQ Chile wings" - oh purleeeze! Without wishing to be disrepectful here, there seems to be a rather obvious American 'flavour' for most of these recipes, which I'm pretty sure is not what was in the Prof's mind!

If you want to know what hobbits would have been eating, go find a (UK) Country cookbook, preferably from the earlier part of the 20thC. The Shire is, basically, an idealized English county with happy yokels & middle class squires, etc, etc, so food as appropriate.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 05:26 PM

That's perhaps the main flaw in the films, the food is given much less important a place than in the books - and I'm sure any hobbit would agree with that.

But agreed about it being straightforward food - fry-ups and stews and boiled mushrooms and so forth. Fancy cakes for occasions perhaps, but hardly fancy recipes. And beer, of course.

But give Oi Boiled Parsnips,
and a Gurt Dish of Taters
and a lump of Fatty Ba-acon
and a Pint of Good Ale.

That's the style, I suggest.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 05:29 PM

Could anyone offer ways of making Kevin shut up?

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 06:30 PM

Bull crappies and baldersquash! Imaginary beings eat imaginary food.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 07:47 PM

Well, GUEST, if what you really want is to make Kevin shut up...I suggest that you come up with something creative of your own that is so extraordinary, fascinating and beautiful that he, and all of us...are simply struck dumb with admiration.

*

*

*

*


We're waiting.....

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Sonnet
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 07:59 PM

Would seed cake be caraway seed cake? (Known as toenail cake in our house.)

Jay

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Sorcha
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 10:07 PM

I was thinking that Seed Cake would be Poppy Seed cake..........very easy to make.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Julia
Date: 02 Jan 03 - 10:38 PM

Watch out, Naemanson- it could be "hobbit"- forming (Heehee)
singing- "Getting to be a hobbit with me"
snarkle snarkle
happy new year- Julia

PS I have been putting together a collection of pre-potato Celtic recipes that might interest you

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 06:47 AM

Julia, pre-potato Celtic recipes may not be suitable. I don't have the books to hand, but I'm sure I remember Sam refer to " 'Taters" as "Gaffer's delight"

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: MMario
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 07:34 AM

'taters and 'maters were both present in Middle Earth -

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 08:32 AM

Thanks to all for your contributions. I appreciate them all. The earlier references are for recipes that are "modern" but the cooks gave them Middle Earth type names. That wasn't what I was looking for.

Raedwulf got it right. I believe Tolkien was trying to recreate an English country environment in the Shire. I am looking for those recipes as pointed out by Sorcha and Sonnet. I don't know what is meant by seed cake. What goes into it? Why is it good with ale?

Julia's mention of the pre-potato Celtic recipes is not intended to be an answer to my question. And I certainly would be interested in those recipes, Julia, when is the dinner party?

And I want to know why this might be hobbit forming, OR Couldn't you say? I wouldENT want this thread to disolve into a pun fest. Then you'd really be SORRY MAN.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Willie-O
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 09:58 AM

Not sure if I should condemn OR THANC you for starting this, Brett. I mean, ever read anything by Rohan Mistry? Geez, the mental Smaug's getting thick around here.

W-O

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Sorcha
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 10:18 AM

Seed Cake recipes

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Hollowfox
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 11:00 AM

Naemanson, I'd suggest just going to the library (why are you not surprised) and getting a book of English recipes. I agree about the Yank and Fandom tone of some of the above, although some sound pretty good, once you ditch the cutsy names. I've always envisioned the Shire as pretty much early Victorian (just pre Industrial Revolution), minus gunpowder. (Hunting and war, folks, not recipes)

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Gollum
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 11:16 AM

FISSH

Catch fissh
Hit fissh on rock until dead
EAT

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Graznak - an Orc
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 11:17 AM

This thread is racist - no man-flesh recipes.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 11:29 AM

Graznak, check out some of the recipes in the links posted early on in the thread. There are some hobbit recipes in there.

I hope nobody gets SORE ON my starting this thread. This sELVISH attitude is new for me. But for I AND YOU IN the mudcat this kind of thread is fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Hollowfox
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 12:48 PM

OK, Graznak, here are some recipes for you. The book is probably out of print, but it really does exist, so perhaps you can get it on Interlibrary Loan, or through Amazon.com.

To Serve Man:a cookbook for people
by Karl Wurf
Philadelphia: Owlswick Press
1976
ISBN: 0-913896-05-5

Your bloodthirsty librarian, Hollowfox

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 12:58 PM

HERE is where you can find that book, Graznak.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 02:07 PM

SEEDCAKE
Of the 33 recipes for seed cake in the list posted by Sorcha, only two were not poppy seed recipes. In the early Victorian period Hollowfox envisions, was poppy seed cake popular in the "Shire"? Here is an old one for caraway seed cake.

Seedcake- Victorian Recipe

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup (227 grams) butter
1 cup (8 oz.) sugar
2 teaspoons caraway seeds
6 eggs, separated
2 tablespoons brandy
Caraway comfits (sugared caraway seeds)or lump sugar, crushed.

Sift together the flour, salt and nutmeg. Set aside. Work butter until creamy, then gradually work in the sugar until mixture looks and feels fluffy. Stir in caraway seeds and beat in egg yolks, one at a time, beating hard after each addition. Add flour and brandy, alternately, and fold in stiffly beaten egg whites, gently but thoroughly. Spoon batter into a greased and lightly floured 9-inch tube pan. Sprinkle caraway comfits or coarsely crushed lump sugar on top. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for one hour or until cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. Cool in pan about 10 minutes, then turn out onto cake rack, and cool completely.
A day or two of mellowing, with the cake tightly wrapped, develops the delicious caraway flavor.

Like most Victorian recipes, this one takes a bit of time. It is from The American Heritage Cookbook, but recipes of this kind were usually similar on both sides of the Atlantic.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 02:48 PM

Here is an English recipe for seedcake from Mrs. Beaton's. Recipe 2525, "A very good seed cake." Caution: Mrs Beaton was not a cook; all her recipes were from observation or taken down from a cook. Some adjustment in amounts of ingredients may be necessary. This edition of her book- 1888.

SEEDCAKE (Beaton)

1 pound butter
6 eggs
3/4 pound sifted sugar
Pounded mace and grated nutmeg to taste
1 pound flour\3/4 oz. caraway seeds
1 wineglass of brandy

Beat the butter to a cream; dredge in the flour; add the sugar, mace, nutmeg and caraway seeds, and mix these ingredients well together. Whisk the eggs, stir to them the brandy, and beat the cake again for ten minutes. Put it in a tin lined with buttered paper, and bake it from 1 1/2 to 2 hours. "This cake would be equally nice made with currants, and omitting the caraway seeds." "Average cost 2s.6d"

She also has a simpler one, a more likely cake for the Hobbit stratum:

Common Seed Cake (Beaton recipe 2524)

1/2 quartern of dough [2 lb.? see below]
1/4 pound of good dripping
6 oz. of moist sugar
1/2 oz. caraway seeds
1 egg

"If the dough is sent in from the baker's, put it in a basin covered with a cloth, and set it in a warm place to rise. Then, with a wooden spoon, beat the dripping to a liquid; add it, with the other ingredients, to the dough, and beat it until everything is very thoroughly mixed. Put it into a buttered tin, and bake the cake for rather more than 2 hours." "Average cost, 9d. Seasonable at any time."

Many definitions of a quartern in the OED; a quartern can be a 4 pound loaf made with a quartern of flour, thus she apparently means 2 pounds of flour.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Naemanson
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 03:06 PM

"Mrs Beaton was not a cook..."

Sounds like the great language book, English As She Is Spoke. The Portuguese author did not speak English but wrote it using a French-English Dictionary. Our favorite English expression from it is "to craunch a marmoset".

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 03:25 PM

By 1888, Beaton's book, over 1600 pages plus adv. and intro. material, had sold 693,000 copies, and many more with the new edition of that year. Titled "Book of Household Management," it was one of the most popular books of all time, with Ward, Lock & Co. distributors in London, New York, and Melbourne. It was printed by Ward, Lock, as recently as the 1930s. There are more recent printings, but these are facsimiles of the first edition. A good copy of the real thing (eds. of 1888 to 1906) start at about $80 US and higher for editions with colored plates and fine condition.

The English is upper class, unlike the book mentioned by Naemanson. In spite of the caution, it is a very important reference for all cooks.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 08:30 PM

Here's a seed cake recipe I found in the Australian Women's Weekly 100 Favourite Cakes Cookbook. The book is only about 30 years old, so this is by no means an OLD recipe, but it looks quite simple and easy to do:

OLD ENGLISH SEED CAKE

6 oz. butter                2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup castor sugar       1 tablespoon ground almonds
3 eggs, separated          1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons caraway seeds

Cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat egg-whites until stiff, then add yolks and whisk well together. Gradually add to creamed butter mixture. Sift flour, add alternately to mixture with ground almonds, caraway seeds and milk.
    Turn into greased 9in. x 5in. loaf tin, bake in moderate oven approximately 1 hour until golden brown and firm to touch.
    The top can be sprinkled with extra caraway seeds before cooking, if desired.

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Mudlark
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 10:20 PM

Enough with the seed cakes, already! Twice baked cakes are surely bagels...which are boiled first, then baked. And even Fido, or Frodo or whatever his name is, wouldn't dare put beebleberries in them!

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 10:28 PM

Jenny O- Self-rising flour- how much baking powder to how much flour? Never used it here (Canada). A quick check shows some of our recipes specify amounts of baking powder that can vary from 3 tablespoons /cup flour (some pancake batters) to 1 teaspoon /cup, many 3 1/2 tsp/cup flour. And some none at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 10:57 PM

Boiled, then baked, doesn't sound like twice-baked to me. Bagels are horrid things anyway; I doubt that Tolkien even knew what they are.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Julia
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 10:59 PM

So how come nobody has mentioned MUSHROOMS!! Seems to me they figure rather prominently several times in the book. Various pies and tarts would fit well, too I should think...Okay Brett you are on! A hobbit feast- our house? (When it stops snowing)... and be careful with my china!

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Jan 03 - 11:24 PM

Guest,Q, you've just sent me running to the cookbooks again. I really haven't got a clue, since I've always been able to use self-raising flour. I didn't know everybody didn't have it. All I can find in reference to this is something I found in the Advanced Commonsense Cookery Book:

"The plainer and cheaper the mixture the more baking powder or cream of tartar and soda is required.
Large sponge cakes do not require any baking powder."

I'd go with the middle amount you mentioned, say 3 1/2 tsp/cup and see what happens.

I bet they didn't have self-raising flour on Middle Earth either!

Hollowfox, I just clicked on your link about the book "To Serve Man", because I knew I'd heard of it before in a TV show, and I got my answer - it was an old episode of "The Twilight Zone". I didn't know they had actually produced a book as a result of that show!

SIIIIIIIIIIIICCCCCKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

jENNY (bLOODY cAPS lOCK!!!!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 06:40 AM

Man: This elegant lttle biped has long been valued as a delicacy. It forms a traditional part of the Autumn Feast, and is served between the fish and the joint... (From the Giant's Cook Book quoted in The Silver Chair by CS Lewis.)

Cakes and Ale? Whether seed cake or not, they always have gone together - just try it. As recorded by Shakespeare - "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?" (Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Hollowfox
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 11:29 AM

Jenny, the Twilight Zone episode was based on a short story of the same title. I'll look it up later if you like, to be sure I name the right author. I got my copy of the book from a friend who said I had very good taste.
When I'm home on my lunch hour, I'll see if I can get the formula for self-rising flour as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 12:59 PM

Self-Raising Flour - don't they sell it as such in the shops in your part of the wolrd?

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 01:03 PM

SELF-RISING FLOUR
Printed from COOKS.COM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


4 c. flour
2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. double acting baking powder
Mix all ingredients. Store in tightly sealed jars. Use in any recipe calling for self-rising flour.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: JennyO
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 01:08 PM

Apparently they don't - I've been using it here in Oz all my adult life (which is a very long time, boys and girls). That's why I was totally lost for an answer about how much baking powder to put in. I've never had to think about it before. Too much for the poor little brain........

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Hollowfox
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 02:14 PM

For a smaller batch, my recipe calls for one cup of flour, one quarter teaspoon of baking soda, and an optional pinch of salt. I didn't check the math (lazy me), but it probably works out about the same.

The short story "To Serve Man" is by Damon Knight.

Maryjustbackfromlunch

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 02:21 PM

I wasn't really seeking fo an answer on "self-rising" flour. By indicating the various amounts required by different recipes, I was trying to show that one would have to have several batches for different needs. We buy flour (and sugar) in 10 kilo (22+ lbs) bags.
Jenny O, can't imagine a country without bags of plain flour.

Sorcha, I looked as well. Google has "recipes" varying from one to two spoonfuls baking powder per cup flour. I checked our old cookery bible, Fanny Farmer pre 1942, and it says 1 tsp/cup may be used as a rough guide. We prefer to adjust according to the recipe.

This brought up the question of the sorts of baking powder used in Victorian recipes. I checked Mrs. Beaton (1883). She says "Already many different sorts are sold.... but the action of all is practically the same. A common recipe for home-made baking powder is 10 oz. ground rice [for bulk, to facilitate mixing], 9 oz. [bicarb of] soda, 8 oz. tartaric acid [cream of tarter also mentioned]." Most people here use "double acting," which is monocalcium phosphate and sodium bicarbonate in a starch to add bulk (takes about 1/3 less in recipes than tartar type).
Did Hobbit cooks argue about this?

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: JennyO
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 09:55 PM

Guest, Q, this is not a country without bags of plain flour. We have a choice of plain or self-raising. Always have had as long as I can remember. I can't believe I'm spending this much time talking about flour! No doubt the hobbits would have argued about anything and everything, just like we do.

It's a strange thing - you're going along making shopping lists, paying the rent, wondering what to have for dinner, worrying about your family, then you get on Mudcat and you find yourself delving into encyclopaedias and cookbooks, reading tea packets, encouraging people to give up smoking, following Sinsull's adventures with his roof on the other side of the world, wondering if Rock Chick's mother is going to find her old flame, hunting down old songs, and generally trying to make a difference to all the world's problems, and you realize what a gift Mudcat is. It takes you out of yourself and opens you up to the world!

That's my thought for the day.

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 10:26 PM

Hobbit food- found a miserable Hobbit song on google; here is one verse:
I brush my toes
I eat my lunch
I go to Rivendell
On Wednesdays I see Gandalf
And have buttered scones for tea.

The chorus has the line: He sleeps all night and he eats all day Sounds like Santa Claus in the off-season.

Another (ugh):
We go out to the inn, to the Ivy Bush Inn,
And we drink 'til we fall down!
The cheese is sweet, the bread is thick,
And the ale it flows, and it's brown!
Sing out with your friends at the Ivy Bush Inn
And drink the best ale in town!

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: JennyO
Date: 04 Jan 03 - 11:08 PM

Sound just like folkies to me!

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: GUEST,paddymac
Date: 05 Jan 03 - 10:53 AM

Carrots and cabbage are, I think, of european origin. 'Taters and 'maters, and corn (Zea maize)are all of american origin. I thought it a little strange to see the hobbits fleeing through field of maize. The "time feel" of the film works is medieval, or pre-Colombian, which is why I was sort of suprised to see american food stuffs. Guess that's the beauty of fantasy and wizardry.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Cluin
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 12:38 AM

That reminds me of a line from the "Fellowship" movie that I thought sounded out of place. It's right near the end when Aragorn decides the Fellowship is finished and they should rescue Merry and Pippin. He smirks and says "Let's hunt some orc!"

It just made him sound like another D&D nerd to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Naemanson
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 09:43 AM

Well, we gathered on Saturday to celebrate Tolkien's eleventy first birthday (1/3/03). I made seed cake using a recipe from one of the web sites referenced above. I am not an experienced cook so I could not tell from looking at the recipe how the end product should turn out.

I was thinking a seed cake, as used by Tolkien, would be a denser seeded bread more than a cake as we are used to seeing them. This came out very fluffy with the seeds mixed into the batter. It was very good and we ate it up but it wasn't what I am looking for.

And Julia is right. What about mushrooms and any other foods mentioned in the books? What "old" recipes are there for mushrooms? I admit, reading the story of carrying the basket of mushrooms away from Farmer Maggot's farm sure made me wonder what they were going to do with them.

Thanks very much for all the recipes and all the interesting information.

By the way, Julia, you are on! Hobbit feast sound good! I will be careful not to crack the plates, chip the mugs, blunt the knives or burn the corks.

Subject: RE: BS: Hobbit Question - Food in LOTR
From: Grab
Date: 06 Jan 03 - 02:42 PM

Hobbiton is always shown as pre-industrial, so I doubt whether they'd have baking powder. I think more likely for a "seed cake" would be a fruit cake kind of thing. And a good rich fruit cake goes *very* nicely with a bit of light ale!

Graham.