Into the Wardrobe

I wonder what Dwarves in Moria ate. Of course we know that they traded with outsiders a good deal; probably gemstones for food since they don't seem to have been farmers. Maybe they dug up lots of different kinds of roots in the earth. Reminds me of the talking trees in Narnia eating different kinds of dirt.

I could see the men of Gondor eating a more British-type diet, maybe mixed with some Scandinavian-fare, especially on the coasts.

Rohan, hmm. I like to think the Rohirrim would have a more medieval type of cuisine: pork, venison, bread, beer, etc. Of any of the countries, they would probably be the most likely to raise a lot of cattle, sheep, and pigs due to the large amounts of grazing land.

Hobbits would eat something completely country British, since Tolkien based their society alot on the countryside of England.

IElves I could see as being mostly vegetarian with a little meat, particularly the Noldor. (I also think, of all races, they would be the most likely to invent sushi.)

Dwarves would probably enjoy a much more medieval cuisine like the Rohirrim. Hmmm, maybe that's where they trade a lot (or the relatives of the Rohirrim in the North near Mirkwood and in Dale)

The orc will take any kind of maggot-free bread, thank you!

Hobbits and dwarves are pretty much gourmands. They love food! I picture them settling in to an all-day buffet, smoking section, please.

Tom Shippey, JRRT's successor in philology, wrote a great book called _The Road to Middle-Earth_, fascinating reading for Tolkien freaks. I can't find the passage right now, but somewhere in it, he makes a compelling case that the hobbits were partly and consciously based on Appalachian Mountains Scots-Irish culture. Tolkien had a student or students from Appalachia studying at Oxford, and was fascinated with the language (as a linguist, I'll bet he was!) and the whole hillbilly culture, and later worked it into the hobbit culture, although the hobbits are also clearly a type of rural English folk as well.

So I'll vote for the hobbits tanking up on fried chicken, fried catfish, hush puppies, ham and black-eyed peas, succotash (after all, at least in the movie, Farmer Maggot had a corn field), pecan pie, and I wouldn't put it past them to eat chicken-fried steak, no doubt for second breakfast. Do any of y'all reading this outside the U.S. need any of these explained?

The orcs, however, would be the ones eating corn dogs, no doubt between changing tires while working the pit crew at NASCAR races. Of course, orcs might also be the ones who cook for late night hospital cafeterias, too.