Saturday, September 25, 2021

Answers to the Middle-earth Food Quiz

Here are the answers to this year's quiz with everyone's scores below!  How did you do?

1. Apples -- YES
2. Bacon -- YES
3. Blackberries -- YES
4. Butter -- YES
5. Cheese -- YES
6. Chocolate -- NO
7. Coffee -- YES
8. Eggs -- YES
9. Garlic -- NO
10. Honey -- YES
11. Mushrooms -- YES
12. Pickles -- YES
13. Potatoes -- YES
14. Salad -- YES
15. Tomatoes -- NO

Most of these appear in the first chapter of The Hobbit, "An Unexpected Party."  The others appear elsewhere either in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings.  

Basically, Tolkien did not include any New World foods in Middle-earth except potatoes.  Potatoes were so dear to his heart, such an integral part of the rural English cuisine he was celebrating, that he had to keep them.  But the three on this list that are NOT in the books -- chocolate, garlic, and tomatoes -- are all New World foods (native to the Americas) and thus excluded (even though tomatoes make a memorable appearance in the ROTK movie).  Coffee originally comes from Arabia, so he included it.

Scores:

Bea -- 12
Catherine Hawthorn -- 12
The Far Side of Forever -- 12
Ivy Miranda -- 12
Shire Rose -- 11
Eva -- 10
Livia Rachelle -- 10
Pages to Remember -- 10
Chloe the Movie Critic -- 8
Mary H. -- 8
Samantha -- 7

4 comments:

  1. So cool about his reasoning, I'd forgotten Middle Earth was supposed to be Europe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Livia Rachelle, well, yes, basically Europe long, long ago. Sorta ;-)

      Delete

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