42. This Isn’t Freaking Redwall!

On food in Tolkien.

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Jared’s choice of topic: food in Middle-earth. As Jared says in his introduction, he was reminded of the subject
when a semi-viral Tolkien tweet went around again claiming that The Lord of
the Rings is in its various parts like the stereotype of recipe blogs: a
lengthy and seeming rambling introduction to an eventual meal. But that’s not
in fact the case, and the wider question of how food – and appetites and
hunger in many different forms – is described by Tolkien in Middle-earth as a
whole raises some interesting questions in turn. (We didn’t even talk about
Smith of Wootton Major, come to think of it!) Where did the idea the tweet
incorrectly claims come from and why do people apply it to Tolkien when it
seems much more apt for the works of other writers? How does evil in general
intersect with questions of appetite and destruction, and are there
differences in how that is applied both in a literal and metaphorical sense?
How does hunger play out in Middle-earth and where, and is it more apparent in
some works than others? And what would be your preferred meal to join in on if
you were given the chance? Also, we have another rather lengthy news section
this time out because a certain series is literally about to premiere mere
hours from now…

Jared’s
doodle.
Lembas and stew, who wouldn’t want that?

The By-the-Bywater Kitchen
Party! It was great. (Catch
Jared on the next Kitchen Party live on Megaphonic’s Twitch
channel.)

One last Rings of Power
trailer. And it’s
cluuuuuunky. (At this point there are endless features and promo pieces out
and if we tried to track them all we’d seize up.)

TheOneRing.net’s
report about how Alex Jordan has
joined the Warner Bros anime.

The Embracer rights
news, also from TheOneRing.net.

The Marquette University exhibition J. R. R. Tolkien: The Art of the
Manuscript’s home page. Absolutely go if you can get the chance; here’s links to
the three associated lectures and other programming that’s happening.

If you just want to buy the exhibition catalog, here ya
go.

Milwaukee magazine on the exhibition, plus
two
local TV news reports on it.

Bear McCreary’s Rings of Power soundtrack is streaming on all services;
unsurprisingly Amazon’s includes extra
cuts.

The J. A. Bayona interview with io9 with the weird ‘elves are
political, men are melodramatic’ comment.

Insider’s speculation/semi-behind the scenes
piece on Amazon’s financial interest and stances
in the series.

There’s endless recipes for things ‘inspired by’ Tolkien and Middle-earth
online. Tolkien Gateway has a few specific
entries on actual food in
canon, including lembas of course.

Does Redwall have food? Does it
ever.

Kumis!
Ma’amoul! Squid-ink
pasta! Try ‘em all.

Peter Jackson’s Aragorn with the
deer moment from Fellowship.
(It’s at 2:07 in this clip.)

There is indeed a lot out there on fairy tale food as temptation – this 2013
thesis
is almost titled that!

Lembas, Tolkien’s Catholicism and the Eucharist – plenty out there as well!
Here’s an essay/podcast
episode on the matter.

A good chunk of Jackson’s Unexpected Party
sequence from the first Hobbit
film. (Bilbo’s defeated look in his empty pantry is also at 2:07.)

No, really, John Carter
was a very entertaining film.

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