(My book, co-written with A. Goblin, who assures you he is not a figment of your or my imagination, but offers no definitive proof) is “A Goblincore Guide To Life.” This is within. I mean, great meals are something which Goblins appreciate… and even their best chefs are, if not less than Hobbit chefs or Emeril, slightly more chaotic. Sometimes, even a Goblin likes leisure.)
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“Hunger is the best spice.”
-The large Troll who just wandered into your bedroom after hiding quietly in your closet for a week.
If you’re like us, you’ve done nothing with your entire life but wonder what Hobbits eat.
…possibly, you’re not like us in that regard.
But it’s my belief that there are a sufficient number of curious people who might like to know; if not for the sake of knowledge, love of food, or interest in Tolkien, then for the fact that the meal itself would be impossible for most of us; but this Hobbit, who is comfortable but not wealthy, starts his day.
Breakfast!
By Hobby the Hobbit. (Go ahead. Make jokes about my name. If you find one I haven’t heard yet, I’ll give you a sovereign.)
First, I wake up!
I’m one of those sudden wakers, not like some I could name. I don’t hold it against them; it’s rather a blessing and a curse. One moment I’m floating in a warm, comfortable armchair, staring into a Palantir showing the Hobbit Olympics (which happened once. Fifty years ago. We didn’t quite get it right. While apparently Humans DO have pie-eating contests, they don’t consider it an Olympic sport. Their idea of Olympics seems to have a lot to do with running, jumping, lifting…I mean, if we wanted to do those things, we’d just go to work.
I’m no fool. I grab the water jug and run to the bathroom, where I pour about half the jug out. Most of it goes down my throat, giving me the start on hydration for tonight’s pub crawl and incidentally for the day; some of it goes on me and I’m REALLY awake, sputtering. I have a small pastry to give me the energy for the upcoming meal. I bathe and dress in a lovely, if slightly mud-stained, kimono, which was given to me as a gift by an old friend. And then it’s time to rush outside – the Amuse-Bouche man is coming!
The Amuse-Bouche man arrives before the milkman but after the oyster girl; oysters don’t last long. Raw oysters, even pulled right from the sea and packed in ice, don’t last all that long; and the first ten or fifteen houses along the route make this even brief by buying her out before she even gets here. I do love raw oysters; but getting them is too much work. Besides, Monsieur Amuse-Bouche Homme is here!
For those of you who chose to study French instead of Elvish (wise choice!), a “bouche” is a mouth. The amuse-bouche teases the mouth, edges it, gets it ready for the meal to come. I hurriedly set a bunch of water boiling and run outside.
Today’s amuse-bouche is better than oysters anyway; raw tuna tartare in an ice cream cone, with some sort of sweet-savory sauce mixed into the tartare. It LOOKS like a strawberry ice cream, and I’m a little tempted to play a prank or two. But the clear scent of salmon would give it away, plus, it’s considered rude to take more than one. They ask why Hobbits go to war; it’s because, in the nursery, we grab every food item we see, no matter o whom it belongs, and thereafter the teacher insists we must stand facing the wall for a while as everyone else eats.
I shudder at the memory, but I never forgot: in THIS case, in THIS place, if we share our food in general (but not always; don’t touch my Laphroaig, that’s my precious!)—we’ll end up with more food. This only works if everyone agrees to it, which is why it hasn’t transformed us into some species of unbearable kindness and unendurable patient sharing; we can ALL agree on food. We CAN’T all agree on going to war, but we CAN agree that most wars mean less food, and worse food, too. We are a peaceful race as a side-effect of our cuisine. This seems perfectly logical to me.
I eat the tartare. Like most raw fish, you either love raw fish or you don’t. I love it. This is spicy and sugary and sort of umami. That man is a genius and a treasure. I finish up as he flicks the whip far over his horse’s head and he rides on to the next lucky block. Me, my water’s boiling, so I put the eggs in.
Some say Roc eggs are an extravagance. I can hardly argue, but really, I have very few copies. I collect old, battered, cheap books, usually ones people are giving away. I dress reasonably, but not particularly well for a Hobbit of my age and station.
But I love me some Roc eggs. And it saves me from cracking two-dozen ovae every single damn morning. Carefully, with reverence (I buy them over in Humantown, whatever they call it; what Hobbit wants to give up their free time and risk their lives and maybe even their DINNER trying to get their OWN Roc eggs?
Then, it’s time for an appetizer: a nice cream Danish from the little Jewish shop down the road in the nearby Human village. Now, an appetizer is supposed to whet your appetite. But I’ve always felt it helpful to enhance your appetite in multiple ways; otherwise, your neighbors, who have nothing better to do, will accuse of being on a diet, and among Hobbits, that would make you a laughingstock.
So it’s the right moment for pipe-weed. Fortunately, Gandalf recently passed by, out on some kind of Wizardly business, and I was able to buy a good quantity of his excellent weed. I smoke it in my pipe, blowing clever dark smoke rings as I go. I meet a few others on the road, also smoking pipes, and we sort of don’t interact, but we tend to give a definitive, if discreet, wink. A good high to you, my friend.
Now I’m TOO hungry, though. I’m almost home, and I focus. I go to the shelf that holds our pictures of relatives and little trophies (I have one for “Most Unexpected Comestible Usage of Leviathan Tail”, myself. It contain a picture of my uncle Morty, who cheated on his taxes and left my aunt Rivkie all alone and penniless. She’s now a topless dancer in Goblinia, where she is greatly admired for her huge, firm, enormous ears. One good look at Morty, whose picture is still there (he could always come back someday; who knows), and I’m no longer stark raving famished; just nice and hungry. Perfect state for what comes next.
Un-Appetizer. It’s traditional for a Hobbit to clean his plate. But you also need to jolt the taste buds a bit. A little pain makes the pleasure a little sweeter. I use fresh raw broccoli. It doesn’t go well with ANYTHING else I’m eating. But it’s healthy, and it really gets one excited for the next bit.
Soup or Cereal. It being breakfast, I ought to get that Elf-wheat cereal. But it’s a chilly day and I want something hot. I’ve chosen a soup made from lentils and fresh local sausage. I might ALSO have the sucrose, brightly colored cereal. You ought to eat something out of a bowl if you can, and I definitely recommend picking ONE of the two. The seven or so times I’ve tried both, it just hasn’t worked well. That being said, this may be the 8th. As Galadriel said, “Hobbits? They’re hopeless. Yet they seem to get by all right.”
Healthy Juice. Don’t forget your orange juice! I have a whole stack of oranges, stolen by some village children from the controversial orange tree that Ms. Darling put up, the one whose branches grew until they overhung the very path itself. The Town Council asked her to remove the sections which extruded onto public paths. She threw oranges at all of them and ran out. I hired a bunch of local children to go strip the tree bare for me, or almost. Her tree will be sad, and perhaps she’ll final cut just that one real annoying branch. Could work.
Anyway, I helped Because I am a helper. Then, like medicine or whisky (but I repeat myself) – I down a litre in a series of long swallows; I deserve it, after peeling and squeezing so much fruit by myself. Besides, Hobbits don’t get diabetes; that’s a Human disease. I don’t mind the sugar, but it does make me sleepy. Fortunately, I left the coffee pot on, and it’s time for…
Hobbit Coffee! I won’t try to explain it; in comparing it to the coffees of other races, theirs are armored knights on horses trying to battle the demons of sleepiness. Hobbit coffee simply MAKES YOU VERY AWAKE whether you like it or not.
Plenty of cream and sugar. Then a little more cream and sugar.
Iced coffee. (Rather than let the coffee either stay warm forever, eventually sucking out all the flavor, best to take it as it’s cooling and drop it into an overwhelming flagon full of ice. Add more sugar, stir, consume slowly (or you’ll get brain freeze, an affliction which faces every sentient being, except possibly Sauron. And no-one’s seen him eating, say, ice cream; he seems perfectly content with a nice, warm, fresh humanoid skull. Can’t say I blame him. Not everyone can handle coffee.
Chocolate. I won’t describe this section; my chocolatier makes a living, but isn’t deluged. Much as I like him, I kind-of don’t want the Human world descending upon him, buying him out, and mass-marketing half-arsed chocolate in his name. Think of Ray Kroc. Think of Colonel Sanders. “Tacit tempus.” So I’ll just say that I spent a very lovely half hour communing with the candy; and then I had to go and wash my face and, I suppose, change my tunic.
Bacon, home fries, sausage links, Canadian bacon—I mean, it would hardly be a morning meal without them. I once served them to Tom Bombadil, who solemnly informed me that pigs were some of his best friends, and he turned me into a herring for a week. But at least I got to take a 168 hour bath.
Roc eggs benedict. The key to this is making the Hollandaise sauce LAST night if you want it to be good THIS morning. Which I did; I’m no slacker. This is generally a light, French-inspired dish. Doing it with Roc eggs does sort of mess with he delicacy of the dish, but I take it straight to the face; I’m starving.
Drawing room. At this time, it’s a good idea to retire to the drawing room so that you can think about the food and put it into your memory palace while the thoughts are fresh. I sat there, enjoying my meal, thinking it over, smiling a content smile.
And then we get to the Main Course:
Roasted Elf Drumsticks. (Apparently, this particular Elf lost a bit, and also became King. Elves are peculiar, but we can agree with them on one thing…they’re delicious. It’s not that hard to get your hands on good Elf-meat; Elves eat it all the time, and sometimes they note that the Elf they’ve just slain in a duel/murdered for their dress/died in battle just isn’t up to grade-A top Sirloin of Elf quality. So you get the leavings; but the leavings are lovely. And they sell them cheap, as long as you don’t count the cost of their smugness in watching you take what they think is an inferior comestible, one which is beneath them, and giving them MONEY for it.
But there’s no way to avoid Elven smugness, and it can’t get in the way of how much I love this breakfast.
Fresh Snozzberry juice—Snozzberries taste terrible on their own, but add a little sugar and some lemon and lime, pour the whole thing over ice, and you’ve got a healthy, nutritious, rather tasty, refreshing beverage. For a bit of extra kick, add Dragonsbane—but don’t breathe on any Dragons until you’ve brushed your teeth.
After you have eaten everything, then quietly, gently and lovingly awaken your spouse by sharing your good strong flagon of Hobbit coffee, an some buttered scones, and a few freshly-baked chocolate croissants from France, which are horribly expensive and for which you traded either your accordion or your soul; you can’t quite remember. Your spouse wanted to wake up now; you are thanked for your reliability. You remind them it’s just good old Hobbit ingenuity and good planning. Then, as she’s digging into the croissants, you let them know.
“I’ve had a snack,” you tell them, and then you say, with adoration:
“Good morning! I love you! What’s for breakfast?”
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If you enjoyed this, we definitely suggest you try The Monstrous Meal of Tom Ramsey.
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