The Wisdom of the Shire

Hobbits are quite possibly the most lovable foodies* in all of literature. They are constantly astounding Elves and Men and even Dwarves (who are voracious eaters and drinkers in their own rights) with their fathomless stomachs and thirsty throats. They eat six meals a day, as Tolkien tells us in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, at least “when they could get them.”

Bread and cheese, butter and clotted cream, mushrooms, sausages and rashers of bacon … and beer. Quarts and quarts of beer. These are the staples of Hobbits who will pester and scrounge to fill their growling bellies.

Meriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took (aka Merry and Pippin) are the finest examples of Hobbit epicureanism. After the colossal Battle of Isengard—where the army of tree-like giant Ents destroys the evil wizard Saruman’s high walls—the rascally pair raid the sorcerer’s storerooms for provisions and stuff themselves silly on rashers of bacon, salted-pork, bread and honey. Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas find them lounging atop the ruined walls, smoking their pipes contentedly. What’s the first thing Merry and Pippin do? They join their friends in a second luncheon!

When Gandalf whisks poor Pippin away to the citadel of Minas Tirith, the Hobbit’s first urgent questions upon arrival are, “Where are the dining rooms? The inns? And where can he get a decent draught of beer?” Who cares if the undead Lord of the Nazgûl and his raving gang of Ringwraiths are trying to hunt him down like a Buckland rat. All he’s been thinking about on the long ride from Isengard is bread and ale, the poor ravenous little chap!

In The Hobbit Bilbo’s growling stomach is a persistent reminder of the vast and adored pantries he’s left behind at his home in Bag End. He’s like having a grumpy ten-year-old boy along for a cross-country car trip who is constantly complaining about being hungry.

What was so appealing to the Hobbits about food from the Shire? It’s the most basic kind of fare, after all. But sometimes the simplest things done up the right way are the most delicious. When was the last time you had a slice of homemade bread with homemade jam? I promise you it is one of the most scrumptious (to use Gollum’s favorite word) things to eat in Middle-earth or this Earth. Everything we eat now is processed and watered down and concocted to trick us with “natural flavors.” We’ve lost our taste for what is real and honest and, well, Hobbitish. When we dine on fast food, we might as well be eating Orc food.*

Tolkien said he identified with the Hobbits more than any other characters in his works. So why was Tolkien so obsessed with eating? Perhaps the nightmarish months he spent in the barren wastelands of the trenches during WWI (about as close as our world has ever gotten to Sauron’s desolation of Mordor) made him keenly aware of the value and beauty of good food. Like the other soldiers at the front, he would have existed on the few ounces of bread and cheese and boiled vegetables allotted daily. He spent several long months recovering from trench fever in a hospital back in England where patients were served reviving meals like the delightful sounding “toast water” and the oh so mouthwatering “jellied beef tea custard.”

Or maybe it was the food shortages that occurred during WWII (while Tolkien was writing much of The Lord of the Rings) when butter and bacon were rationed and an adult was allowed a single egg for an entire week. Tea, a favorite of Hobbits, continued to be rationed until 1952, two years before The Fellowship of the Ring was published.

Whatever the reason, Tolkien had his Hobbits turn to food for comfort in nearly every situation.* In their long and weary journey through the land of Mordor, Sam Gamgee wistfully reminisces about fish and chips, much to the disgust of the nearly cannibalistic Gollum who is used to eating fish (and smallish goblins) in the raw. “Keep your chips,” sneers Gollum, to which Sam replies in disgust, “Oh, you’re hopeless!”

Sam, however, cannot stop thinking of a homely meal, “something hot out of the pot” with “taters and carrots.” Shire food is a reminder of happier times. Of civilization and goodness. When Gollum catches some rabbits for them to eat, Sam manages to find herbs for a stew—herbs nosed out in a strange war-torn land! (Now that’s an undaunted Hobbit chef.)

A Hobbit like Sam would have spent his entire life eating everything from within an area fifty miles in diameter surrounding Hobbiton. Is it possible to survive like this in our modern age? The answer is an emphatic “yes,” and people are doing it all over the world. It’s called being a locavore.* Give it a try. See how much food you can discover to eat that’s produced within a hundred miles or so of where you live. Nowadays, the average food item on our grocery store shelves travels up to fifteen hundred miles before it gets there. That’s just about the distance from Hobbiton to Mount Doom.

Shop at your local farmers market and meet the people who are growing organic food in your area—food that hasn’t been genetically modified or shipped across the ocean in a bulk freighter. Small farmers (they work on tiny farms and are not, as a rule, tiny people) are a lot like real-life industrious Hobbits, and entering a farmers market feels as if you’re stepping back in time to another age when people knew who grew their food, and the land where they grew it.

Or try foraging for food in the wild like a Hobbit. Mushrooms, we’re told, made the Shire-folk greedier than anything. When Frodo was a lad he’d risked being attacked by Farmer Maggot’s vicious dogs (named Grip, Fang and Wolf) just to steal some of the delicious fungi off his land. Anyone who has ever hunted for the elusive and succulent morels knows the allure that mushroom hunting can have when it takes hold. Aragorn was a great forager and tells the Hobbits they won’t starve in the wilderness with him guiding them because he can find “berry, root and herb.”

Foraging has become a popular pastime and there are many resources (in books and on the Internet) explaining where it’s legal on public lands to harvest mushrooms or berries. Blackberries grow almost everywhere and you can easily preserve them for a taste of summer in the wintertime. Or try a local U-pick blueberry farm—the kind where they let you eat as much as you like while you’re filling your buckets. Kids (most of whom eat like Hobbits) will love this too.*

The very first time we meet Hobbits in The Lord of the Rings they’re introduced as a sort of Greek chorus sitting around a table at an inn called The Ivy Bush, drinking ale and discussing the party preparations for Mr. Bilbo Baggins’s eleventy-first birthday and gossiping about the strange goings-on in the world outside the Shire. The Hobbits love a good pub (or inn as they’re referred to in Middle-earth).* The Golden Perch is a famous inn of Buckland, and both Sam and Pippin are distraught when they can’t partake of its renowned drink, thwarted in their quest to taste “the best beer in the Eastfarthing” by those pesky screeching Ringwraiths who are hot on their hairy heels.

The movie version of The Fellowship of the Ring captured the Hobbits’ beery glee perfectly in the scene at The Prancing Pony in Bree where Merry brings a Man-sized mug brimming with beer back to the table and Pippin reacts with wide-eyed and lusty astonishment exclaiming, “They come in pints?” More is indeed better for Hobbits, especially when it comes to consumption of good brown ale.

For the Hobbits, however, an agreeable inn isn’t just a room in which to get drunk. An inn means a cozy warm fire and a place to tell a story—a place to build friendships. It is also a meetinghouse for sharing ideas and concerns about the world. If you can’t find a nice quiet pub or microbrewery in your own town, try starting a “pub night” at your house. Call forth your friends to imbibe some fine ale. Sit around a table and talk like Hobbits, face-to-face. It’s a remarkably simple and satisfying way to connect.

Sustenance is so important to the Hobbits they speak in food metaphors. Before Bilbo leaves Bag End forever, he tries to explain to Gandalf the oppressive sense of hopelessness caused by his magic ring. He tells Gandalf he feels like, “Too little butter spread over too much bread.” Who hasn’t experienced that sense of despair when you realize there’s only a tiny piece of butter left in the wrapper? Not nearly enough to cover a single piece of dry toast. Dear God! Breakfast ruined! To Hobbits, an excess of butter was one of the great and requisite joys of life. The Hobbits knew what made them happy. Good friends, delicious food on the table, beer and song.

The summer after Sauron is destroyed, we are told, is one of the best growing seasons in the history of the Shire—“The Great Year of Plenty.” Young Hobbits nearly “bathed in strawberries and cream.” What could be better? Nothing. At least not for the men and women of the Shire for whom tasty things to eat are as good as silver and gold.*

So what can we learn from these cheerful woolly-footed gourmands? How can we emulate them without going overboard? Hobbits could eat and drink most of us under the table, and then dance and sing while we were crawling for the door! The message here isn’t about experiencing excess. Instead, it’s about taking delight in what you eat and drink.

Hobbits are constantly delighted and amazed by food. They won’t eat anything before first savoring it—smelling the aromas and talking about how good it’s going to taste. A meal isn’t a mechanical process for them. Instead it’s a life-affirming event. A pleasure to share with friends and loved ones. Partner a Hobbit meal with good beer and wine and the result is usually great conversation, laughter and unbridled singing.

Treat yourself to some Hobbitish food. Find a local baker and get some huge loaves of bread and pair them with some good British cheeses (like Stilton or Double Gloucester). Go to your farmers market and stock up on garden-fresh veggies and new-laid eggs. And then prepare a prodigious meal a Hobbit would die for. I’ll give you a hint: it must include mushrooms (see recipe for “Hobbit Stout and Mushroom Soup”).* Invite your friends or family or neighbors (or all of the above!) to your home and provide them with good deep mugs of dark brown beer.

Kick off your shoes. Unburden yourself with song. Tell each other tales. Dance around the table. Eat like a Brandybuck, and drink like a Took. Leave the cleaning up for the morning. Then go outside and look at the stars.

The Wisdom of the Shire Tells Us …

“Prosperity is not measured in gold, but rather in fine health, good company and delicious things to eat and drink.”