The Hobbit; An Unexpected Party Menu and Recipes | InLiterature (2024)

FAQs

What food is mentioned in The Hobbit? ›

Luncheon Marks the Hobbits' Midday Meal

The Fellowship of the Ring mentions shepherd's pie being served at Bilbo's birthday party, while Bilbo himself served pork pie, mince pie, cold chicken, eggs, cheese, salad, apple tarts and various cakes when he entertained the Dwarves at the beginning of The Hobbit.

How Many Times a Day Do Hobbits Eat? According to the books, there are six traditional hobbit meal times. However, Bilbo eats a second breakfast in The Hobbit novel. The film version of The Fellowship of the Ring also mentions second breakfast, suggesting hobbits eat seven meals throughout each day.

Elevenses is just a snack to tide you over to luncheon. In Hobbiton, this is going to be along the lines of a scone, or maybe some bread with butter and honey, and a cup of tea.

They've mastered the art of baking; seed-cakes, fruit tarts, scones, and pies are all favourite hobbit fare. All of the foods mentioned above could be—and likely are—grown, cultivated, collected, and baked in the Shire.

A plain and comforting beer, I reckon. Something unpretentious, and certainly not a “fancy” ale. We know the beer at the Green Dragon is brown. Hobbits also like to drink a fair quantity of ale, so something sessionable would be preferred.

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit..." (J.R.R. Tolkien). This tea is an earl grey tea that tastes of Shire picked strawberries and fresh cream. Nothing is more suited to a summer day in Middle Earth.

Lembas bread, the magical Elven food, sustains the Fellowship on their arduous journey. Here's what Tolkien tells us about lembas: "the food was mostly in the form of very thin cakes, made of meal that was baked a light brown on the outside, and inside was the colour of cream."

First up is elevenses, which you might have heard of as a hobbit's third meal of the day. Outside of Middle Earth, this late-morning work break involves a light snack — think muffins, scones or biscuits — and a hot tea or coffee. It occurs, as the name implies, at 11 in the morning.

A big jug of coffee had just been set in the hearth, the seed-cakes were gone, and the dwarves were starting on a round of buttered scones . . . 'And raspberry jam and apple-tart,' said Bifur.

Coffee was a beverage known at least by the Hobbits and the Dwarves in the Third Age.

What did Bilbo Baggins eat? ›

In the books, there are several instances where Bilbo's breakfast is mentioned. As for what he ate, the text describes a typical hobbit breakfast of tea, toast, bacon, eggs, and mushrooms. In fact, Bilbo is known to be quite fond of mushrooms, and often serves them at meals.

There is an important theology of eating in The Lord of the Rings. Among Hobbits especially—though it can also be seen among Elves, Men, Ents, and even at times Dwarves—eating is a communal act: food and eating connect Hobbits with each other, with strangers they encounter, and with the earth itself.

Many of the scenes featuring food are intended to lift the mood, and do so successfully; yet Tolkien also uses them to indicate many other things: the history of the place, the level of development reached, the status of a person (and the dwelling) and any relationship dynamics which are important to highlight; this is ...

There issome food and actually quite a lot of drink in the story, but not consistently. Bread, cheese, fruit, smoked or salted pork, honey, milk, wine and beer are the most frequently mentioned fare, simple items plausible in both a medieval and a modern setting.

Smaug had no problem eating Dwarf, and on the day he attacked the great Dwarven kingdom, he likely had enough bodies to last him a long while. But over the decades, the bodies would've decomposed, leaving only whatever meals the Dwarves left behind.