{"id":692,"date":"2025-01-02T21:23:41","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T21:23:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/?p=692"},"modified":"2025-02-08T20:43:54","modified_gmt":"2025-02-08T20:43:54","slug":"what-hobbits-like-to-eat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reidsguides.com\/rb\/what-hobbits-like-to-eat\/","title":{"rendered":"What Hobbits Like to Eat"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t

Hobbits are fairly obsessed with eating. This is not news to anyone who saw the <\/span>Lord of the Rings<\/span><\/i> movies: Bilbo stuffing himself with cake when Gandalf drops by; Sam’s tramping all around Middle-Earth carrying a kitchens-worth of pans on the off-chance he’ll find a brace of conies; Merry and Pippin fretting that, since their human companion Strider doesn’t understand about “second breakfast,” he might not know about <\/span>elevenses<\/span><\/a>, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner, or supper, either.<\/span><\/p>

But in <\/span>The Hobbit<\/span><\/i> (the <\/span>LOTR<\/span><\/i> prequel, for those of you who’ve been hiding in a cave the last two decades), the hunger of halflings was established even more immediately. By page two, we’ve already learned that Bilbo’s hobbit hole comes equipped with lots of pantries and that hobbits eat dinner “twice a day when they can get it.”<\/span><\/p>

The rest of that first chapter, “An Unexpected Party,” sets the culinary tone as poor Bilbo has to drum up an impromptu dinner when 13 dwarfs and a wizard named Gandalf show up unannounced at his green front door. Since Bilbo sprang from the mid-20th-century imagination of J.R.R. Tolkien, Bilbo naturally serves his guests mid-20th-century British comfort food.<\/span><\/p>

Now before you run off screaming, mid-20th-century British comfort food can be a good thing. Even, indeed, comforting.<\/span><\/p>

To prove this, I set out to prepare several items served at Bilbo’s Unexpected Party. The hobbit cobbled together much of his menu from leftovers or staples–cold chicken, cheese, eggs, pickles, raspberry jam, and salad. I was most interested, however, in the home-baked goods: the seed cakes, mince pie, and apple tart. (There was pork pie, too, but two pies seemed overkill, and mince pie much hobbitier.)<\/span><\/p>

To keep in the Middle-Earth spirit of things, I adapted my recipes from historic British cookbooks, including A.W.’s <\/span>A Book of Cookrye<\/span><\/i> (1591), Gervase Markham’s <\/span>The English Huswife<\/span><\/i> (1615), and Isabella Beeton’s <\/span>The Book of Household Management<\/span><\/i> (1861).<\/span><\/p>

Recreating historic recipes is not without its challenges. After a couple of attempts at a yeast-based, 1747 take on seed cakes that produced only dense, fragrant doorstops (and wasted breathtaking amounts of butter and sugar), I fast-forwarded a few centuries to a Victorian version Tolkien himself might have recognized–though I retained the medieval medley of spices.<\/span><\/p>

It was actually fun puzzling out how much is in a quarter-peck (a half-gallon) and guessing at the scope of a pennyworth (a measurement that meant however much of a given ingredient a penny would buy; i.e., tricky!)–not to mention tracking down ingredients like suet, a hard fat from around the kidneys, which I convinced my local Whole Foods butcher to save for me. (Call ahead in the morning, before the day’s butchering is done.) He scrawled “Sample” on the label and slipped it to me for free.<\/span><\/p>

Whole Foods was too healthy, I suppose, to carry lard–rendered pig’s fat–but I found a tub of that standby pastry ingredient at a small Italian meat shop in a strip mall. Handily, just three doors down was the Indian grocer where I found rosewater–though I have heard some chain grocery stores carry it on the international aisle.<\/span><\/p>

It all made for a feast worthy of a hobbit hole.<\/span><\/p>

The seed cake was moister and denser than its pound-cake descendants, but tasty, and the spices and saffron were surprisingly not overwhelmed by the caraway seeds (perhaps because I chickened out and cut the amount called for by two-thirds).<\/span><\/p>

Aside from the lovely touch of ginger, the apple tart was little different from a modern one–proof that the best recipes can last 420 years unaltered.<\/span><\/p>

As for the mince pies… well, I’ll just assume hobbits share the medieval British love of jumbling sweet, savory, and spicy all in the same dish. If any show up at my door unexpectedly, I’ll be sure to ask them. \u2014<\/span>Reid Bramblett<\/span><\/i><\/p>

A Very Good Seed-Cake with Saffron and Carraway<\/span><\/h3>

An ancestor of pound cake adapted from <\/span>The Book of Household Management<\/span><\/i> by Isabella Beeton (1861)<\/span>
<\/span>Makes 1 loaf<\/span><\/p>

INGREDIENTS<\/span><\/h5>