In the world of John Tolkien, the topic of food is given a lot of attention. The culinary preferences of the Lord of the Rings characters are in many ways a role model.
The culinary preferences of the heroes of John R. R. Tolkien's are in many ways a role model. They explain how the dwarves were able to defeat entire armies of evil orcs. We present a small digression into the diet of fantasy heroes.
At first glance, the diet of this people looks like a recipe for promoting obesity. Seven meals a day - breakfast, lunch, snack at 11 o'clock, lunch, tea, dinner and second dinner. It's good that hobbits live in a fantasy world: "The Lord of the Rings" and stories about the hobbits of the British philologist Tolkien and his films. In the second film of the Hobbit trilogy, which is now in theaters, the hobbits talk about dragons, wizards, treasures, fortresses and all sorts of adventures. Of course, Bilbo and his companions do not think about cholesterol and obesity.
At the same time, to save their culinary honor, they do not have to flee to Mordor, to Mount Doom or somewhere else. “The people of Middle-earth eat right,” says Günter Wagner. - Even exemplary. Whoever knows this, Wagner, who is well acquainted with Tolkien's books and films, is a nutrition expert at the Institute for Sports Nutrition in Bad Nauheim.
In Tolkien's world, the topic of food is given a lot of attention. Despite the fact that there are no detailed descriptions of the cuisine of Middle-earth, indications of different preferences in the diet of its inhabitants are constantly present in the work. Hobbits, for example, are prone to gluttony. Eating multiple meals does make sense for them, says the researcher.
It is especially important for Wagner that they have lunch and a snack at 11 o'clock. “Those who are well supplied with nutrients and calories at the beginning of the day will feel more content, relaxed, creative and have a greater sense of humor throughout the day,” says the scientist. This is exactly what can be observed in the example of cheerful, sincere, cheerful hobbits. And those who, due to diet or insufficient nutrition, suffer from chronic or temporary deficiencies in nutrients or energy, often irritated and aggressive. This can be seen among children as well, says Wagner. In a study by his Institute in one of his schools, it was observed that children who eat breakfast at home and take sandwiches with them perform better and are less aggressive. “A sandwich snack at school is like a second breakfast at the hobbits,” Wagner sums up.
With special pleasure, the hobbits eat mushrooms and everything that grows in the idyllic gardens and forests of their country - trout caught with their own hands, game, good butter from happy cows and, of course, fruits, vegetables and herbs. They prefer to drink wine and fresh beer.
This kind of regional food is becoming more and more popular on the other side of the fantasy world. For example, star chef Andre Großfeld. He is confident that the food for the hobbits is up to date. Today, the main trend, both in simple, home, and in haute cuisine, is regionalism. For his restaurant Großfeld - Gastraum der Sinne in Friedburg, Andre buys meat from hunters from the region, and vegetables and herbs from local producers, and a mushroom picker he knows personally picks up the hobbits' favorite food in the forests between Taunus and Vogelsberg. Grossfeld studied Tolkien's novels and even came up with some recipes based on them.
Grosfeld's haute cuisine would have been to the liking of the gnomes, another people from the world of Tolkien. The only drawback is the size of the portions, they might seem too small to the gnomes, because the gnomes love everything big. Any feast they have is like a feast, and vegetables and herbs seem to them to be nonsense. But even such a love for plentiful and heavy food, nutritional expert Wagner gives an explanation.
“Gnomes are miners, they do hard physical work and expend energy like professional boxers or our ancestors,” he says. He estimates the gnomes' need for energy at 8,000-10,000 calories per day.
Noble elves eat quite differently. They prefer only fine food and good wine. Since there is little information in Tolkien's books about the food of the elves, there is still controversy about what they eat. The main question of debate among experts and fans: are elves vegetarians? For example, in the first part of the film "The Hobbit" the elves regaled the dwarves with raw cabbage and other vegetables.
Wagner confirms that meat and fish are not as important in the diet of elves as for hobbits or gnomes. But completely abandoning animal food is unlikely. “I can’t remember a single one of the elves’s statements against meat, fish and game,” says Wagner. Tolkien, for example, describes in detail in his books how elves hunt. There was also a specific energy product in the diet of elves, the progenitor of the now fashionable sports nutrition, an analogue of bread, the so-called lembas. Elves often took this sweet bread on the road, in addition, it gave them strength in battle.
Hobbits, gnomes and elves are united by the fact that they are very fond of sweets, and they prefer wine and beer to water. And this Wagner considers reasonable in a harsh life. In Europe in the Middle Ages, beer was considered a kind of liquid bread.
The researcher was interested in a recently published article by two British doctors. Joseph A. Hopkinson and his son Nicholas S. Hopkinson wondered how one hobbit and several dwarves managed to defeat entire armies of orcs, trolls, wargs and other monsters. They concluded that vitamin D helped them.
On the menu of the hobbits, many foods were found rich in this vitamin - meat, milk, butter and, above all, mushrooms, as already mentioned, a favorite dish of the hobbits. The main source of vitamin D is sunlight. Since hobbits and elves were outdoors a lot, they got enough of this vitamin, which is so essential for bones and muscles. The gnomes got their vitamin D from meat and fish.
Orcs, trolls and other monsters, on the other hand, lived in darkness and were poorly fed. As a result of a lack of vitamin D, they were poorly built, looked sickly and lacked stamina, says the scientist.
Whether or not Tolkien provided vitamin D-rich foods for his characters by chance is of course unclear. While the hobbit saga is fantastic, nutritionally it is very close to reality.
Here are three recipes from the inhabitants of Middle-earth for those who are not afraid to get fat.
Recipe number 1. Poor knight of Middle-earth
Ingredients:
8 toasts
3 eggs
150 ml cream
3 tbsp. tablespoons of sugar
200 g plum jam
Powdered sugar, cinnamon
Butter (or ghee) for baking
Preparation:
Cut the crust off the toast. Thickly spread half of the prepared toast with jam, make sandwiches and cut each of them diagonally to make triangles.
Beat the cream with the yolks and sugar. Dip the bread triangles in the resulting mousse and fry at medium temperature in a large amount of butter until golden brown.
Sprinkle ready-made "Poor Knights" with powder and cinnamon, decorate the dish with plum wedges and serve.
Recipe number 2. Elven Tower with Tomatoes
Ingredients:
100 g polenta (Italian cornmeal porridge)
50 g parmesan
100 ml chicken broth
100 ml cream
1 egg
Salt, sugar, pepper, thyme, garlic
Butter (or ghee) for baking
20 cherry tomatoes
200 ml olive oil
Basil, garlic, salt and pepper
Hard cheese (cut into thin shavings for decoration)
Preparation:
For the "Elven Tower": boil the cream and broth, add salt and pepper to taste. Then mix until smooth with chopped cheese, thyme, garlic and polenta and set aside for a while. Add egg and spices to taste. Put the prepared mass on a baking sheet and keep in the cold for an hour. Then cut the resulting mass into rectangles of different sizes, which will need to be fried in butter until golden brown.
Stewed tomatoes: make small cuts on the skin of cherry tomatoes and simmer them in olive oil with spices and herbs in the oven for about 20 minutes at a temperature of 80 degrees.
Elves are known to love exquisitely presented dishes. Lay out the resulting rectangles of different sizes in the form of small pyramids and decorate with tomatoes and slices of freshly cut cheese.
Recipe number 3 Potato soup with poached egg and blood sausage strudel "according to the recipe of the gnomes"
Ingredients:
200 g potatoes
300 g broth
150 g milk
150 g cream
300 g blood sausage
2 sheets of strudel dough
1 apple
4 eggs
Preparation:
Peel the potatoes and cook in the broth over medium heat. Then add milk and cream and bring to a boil again. Add salt, pepper and nutmeg to the resulting soup, then beat in a mixer until the consistency of mashed potatoes.
For strudel, cut blood sausage and apple into cubes and stir. Wrap the resulting mass in strudel dough to make a roll, which will need to be baked at a temperature of 240 degrees until golden brown. Cut the finished strudel into large pieces, as the gnomes like.
Poached eggs are prepared in the usual way: the raw egg is carefully poured (you can first break the egg into a cup) into boiling water. The eggs are cooked for about 4 minutes.
Serve potato soup in deep bowls with two eggs and one piece of strudel in each serving.
