Discussion on question by Gandalf: Is the Hobbit diet based on Full English breakfast and Tea?

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01:09

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Q: Is the Hobbit diet based on Full English breakfast and Tea?

There are 3 notable meals described occurring in the Shire, or its vicinity in The Hobbit and Lord of The Rings: During the “unexpected party”, Bilbo exhausts his larder putting out cakes, buttered scones, biscuits, seed-cake, eggs, cold chicken, pickles, coffee, tea, and beer. The dwarves cal...

GreenMatt

Gandalf, of all people, you should know that you didn't kill the trolls - you just kept them distracted enough that they stayed out too long. The sun killed them!

Gandalf

OK guys-edited. Thanks. The older I get, the less memory serves me.

amaretto

You're in great shape for being many thousands of years old.

Mithrandir

@amaretto Why thank you.

Gandalf

@Mithrandir Thank you for the tag. Couldn't find it.

OrangeDog

01:09

None of those foods would be found in an English breakfast, other than bacon.

Gandalf

@OrangeDog ...and Tea.

Elliot Bonneville

Talking to yourself again, are you, @Gandalf / @Mithrandir?

Mr Lister

Eleventy-first! Eleventy-first!

Todd Wilcox

Why would Hobbits eat the way "...Americans seem to imagine the English eat..."? Tolkein was English, not American.

Gandalf

@ToddWilcox I was making a comment on the way Americans see English people. Americans who have traveled to England and spent any amount of times there often comment that the English eat breakfast 3 time a day.

@MrLister Celebrating a birthday? BTW, I interviewed Dr. Asimov once.

Janus Bahs Jacquet

01:09

There's also the rabbit stew (could use some taters) that Sam cooks in Ithilien; while not actually in the Shire, the inference seems to be that he's doing his very best there to make something you might find in the Shire.

Gandalf

@ToddWilcox Thanks. Didn't catch that missing dash.

jamesqf

@Gandalf: I don't know if I'm at all a typical American, but the "full English breakfast" is something I might cook myself for supper, on a cold winter day.

Gandalf

@jamesqf Where I live it is not at all unusual year-round in the evening; we don't have winter like you do.

Darth Hunterix

@amaretto Yeah, eat that, Yoda!

HorusKol

@Gandalf "eat breakfast 3 times a day"? Where do soups and stews and casseroles, or steak and chips, or bangers and mash fit into breakfast fare?

Gandalf

01:09

@HorusKol I'm just quoting what Americans told me. Don't shoot the messenger.

Wad Cheber

I don't think we hear of hobbits eating fried eggs, toast, baked beans, or fried/grilled tomatoes, and there are plenty of things we do hear about that aren't in the full English breakfast: cheese, buttered scones, biscuits, seed-cake, cold chicken, pickles, etc. The diet is clearly English, but not limited to the full English breakfast.

Gandalf

What I originally wrote was breakfast and Tea, which is served at 4 in the afternoon, or at least my family did.

I was here before, but no one joined

Wad Cheber

I can't think of any Americans who would read "Tea" as a meal, except maybe Ixrec, because he's lived in the UK for years.

It just doesn't parse that way.

At least for anyone I know.

Gandalf

Well, I grew up with English customs , sorry in the 50's and 60's

Wad Cheber

So 99% of people outside the UK/Commonwealth and Ireland would read your question as "Do hobbits drink nothing but the beverage called tea and eat only eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, toast, beans, bacon, and sausage?"

Gandalf

01:21

When I made that statement, I was making a comment on the ignorance of the Americans, but I guess I wasn't clear enuff

Wad Cheber

I'd be careful of the Americans/ignorance thing too - I've said it many times, and I have frequently been chastised for it. :)

Gandalf

I am a bloody American-by birth. but of English/Irish parents.

Wad Cheber

And as I said, I've been to the UK many times and lived in Ireland for a year, so I am better suited than most Muricans to know what you meant by "Tea", but I missed it entirely.

Gandalf

And anyway, I havent lived there for 30 years

Wad Cheber

@Gandalf I'm Murican too. For some reason, that makes people even more upset when I criticize Murica.

Gandalf

01:24

What happened to freedom of expression?

Wad Cheber

The attitude has generally been "It's okay when outsiders criticize us, but if you live here and you don't like it, shut up or go somewhere else"

I don't understand it, but that's what happens.

Gandalf

where do you live in the US?

I grew up in NY

Wad Cheber

~~The good part~~ I'm from New York (Long Island, to be precise), but I've lived near Princeton New Jersey for the past 4 years.

Gandalf

I grew up upstate, in a little town called Walden

they are so Northern Irish up there that the counties are Orange, Ulster etc

Anyway, maybe i'm just out of touch

Wad Cheber

Yeah, all Protestant Northern Irish. My heritage is Irish Catholic, including some from the North.

I'm distantly related to Bernadette Devlin, actually. Fourth cousin or something like that.

Gandalf

01:29

My mother was a Burns, one of the Riever families deported for rebellion

Devlin, eh

Wad Cheber

So you're a wild goose?

Gandalf

say what?

Wad Cheber

O'Dubhlain or something like that. Anglicized to Devlin.

Gandalf

no , i meant wild goose.

whats that?

Wad Cheber

Flight of the Wild Geese

The Flight of the Wild Geese was the departure of an Irish Jacobite army under the command of Patrick Sarsfield from Ireland to France, as agreed in the Treaty of Limerick on 3 October 1691, following the end of the Williamite War in Ireland. More broadly, the term "Wild Geese" is used in Irish history to refer to Irish soldiers who left to serve in continental European armies in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. == By countryEdit == === Spanish serviceEdit === The first Irish troops to serve as a unit for a continental power formed an Irish regiment in the Spanish Army of Flanders in...

Gandalf

01:31

No, they just kicked our asses out and sent them to ireland

Wad Cheber

Ah, I thought you meant kicked out of Ireland.

Gandalf

It was the cause of the original Troubles

No, frlom Scotland.

Wad Cheber

So you're essentially a Planter?

Descended from the Planters, I mean.

Gandalf

There were like 14 families that never stopped fighting the Brits

gotta look that up

gotcha

Wad Cheber

Plantation of Ulster

The Plantation of Ulster (Irish: Plandáil Uladh; Ulster-Scots: Plantin o Ulstèr) was the organised colonisation (plantation) of Ulster – a province of Ireland – by people from Great Britain during the reign of King James I. Most of the colonists came from Scotland and England. Small private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while the official plantation began in 1609. An estimated half a million acres (2,000 km²) spanning counties Tyrconnell, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan, Coleraine and Armagh, was confiscated from Gaelic chiefs, most of whom had fled Ireland in the 1607 Flight of the...

Gandalf

01:34

basically yes. My family were all farmers.

Wad Cheber

You Ulster Scots gave us our hillbillies!

:)

Gandalf

Thats right

and they still have the closest to Elizabethan english as u can find

The funny thing is that my mothers family were proddies, but my father english catholic

Wad Cheber

A Saxon Taigue?!?!

Perish the thought!

Gandalf

I guess

what a world, eh?

Wad Cheber

I rarely get a chance to trot out my Irish slang.

Gandalf

01:38

I dont have much. I was brought mainly english fashion...including roast beef on sunday

$ o'clock tea

4 oclock

and dont look at me with that tone of voice

Wad Cheber

My mom makes the most amazing roast beef and Yorkshire pudding ever, but the Yorkshire pudding is nothing like the traditional recipe.

Gandalf

really?

I dont eat meat now for like a long time

broke my fathers heart . he was a butcher.

Wad Cheber

It's basically a thin popover batter poured into muffin tins half full of sizzling butter, then baked. Not the dense stuff with beef drippings.

@Gandalf Your father sounds like my kind of guy.

Gandalf

To tell you the truth , my mom was a really bad cook

Wad Cheber

I'm a chef and I love meat above all else.

Gandalf

01:41

hew did a lot of the cooking

Well, be warned, my father died early from his diet mostly

What do you cook?

mainly meat dishes/

?

I cook . too, but international.

Wad Cheber

I'm just a line cook/chef de partie. I cook what I am told.

Gandalf

professionall???

wow!

In a real restaurant and everything? I'm impressed.

Wad Cheber

I spent most of my time in high end French and New American restaurants, but it was hell on my nerves and knees, so I'm taking it easy at a gourmet market now. Cooking for the prepared foods section.

Gandalf

cool.

Listen, I'll catch you later. getting close to my bedtime. Nice chatting with you. Stay in touch.

Wad Cheber

Take care.

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Discussion on question by Gandalf: Is…