How to Eat Like a Hobbit

You won't believe this, but I came across an article on How to Eat Like a Hobbit. What a fun idea!   It begins like this:

Wild strawberries by my woods

If there is one area of life most people can change in order to return to the Shire, in a metaphorical if not literal sense, it’s their eating habits. You can live in a 20-story high-rise in Manhattan or Paris and still adopt a Hobbit lifestyle when it comes to eating. That’s because Hobbits are different from most of the enslaved subjects of Mordor not only in what they eat… but also in how and why they eat it. Hobbits, along with most of the free peoples of Middle-earth, eat pure, naturally-grown, mostly wild foods from their own gardens or nearby fields: lush berries, fresh bread, cheese, cold meats, mushrooms (lots of those!), wine and beer. They eat frequently, usually in groups and often accompanied by poetry readings and songs. Hobbits are not vegetarians but they have a varied diet of whole, local foods, including Nimcelen, the hobbit version of potato salad; Soroname, a warm soup filled with pasta, meat, tomatoes, beans and onions; and Lembas, Elvish waybread. They drink wine and, when they can get it, such invigorating liquors as Ent-draughts and Miruvor, the life-giving and energizing elixir of the Elves. Food has a spiritual as well as a biological purpose for them.

It's a long article and gets a little political, but towards the end there is a section on practical suggestions that are interesting.  Just click here to read more.

Backwards day in the Shire -
 the moon was out before sunset

Tonight I ate like a Hobbit.  I made a pot of Leek and Barley soup that was mild (bland?), but pretty good.  This was the first time I remember using a leek so I looked up a tutorial on how to clean them.  They are notorious for being very dirty because of the way they grow, but once you know the trick, it isn't too bad of a job.

3 Tablespoons olive oil          1/3 cup parsley, minced
1 cup barley                           Salt to taste
1 carrot finely grated               7 cups water
2 leeks, sliced                         1 boullion cube (opt)
1 bay leaf                                chopped mushrooms (opt)

1. Heat oil and add barley, stir 1 minute.  Immediately add carrots, leeks, bay leaf,  parsley, salt and water.
2. Cook over low to medium heat for 40 to 45 minutes - until barley is tender.  Add more water if needed.
3.  Add optional ingredients during the last 20 minutes of cooking time.

After dinner, it was such a lovely evening, I decided to go for a stroll out  in the Shire. On the path along the woods  I found wild strawberries that were blossoming.  If  I go out every morning when the flowers are done and check for ripe berries, I might be able to get a few.  Usually the critters get there first, but I'm going to give it a try.

Golden sunset over the Shire-
 probably means rain tomorrow

J.R.R. Tolkien, the Shire, and Me

The other day I watched a dramatization of a conversation between J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis and some other comments from Tolkien about his work.  "Of course, you know,"  he said "that being born in 1892 means that I was born in the 'Shire'."    Yes, of course he was.  And I spent my childhood with many people who were also born in the 1800's and continued to live with the sane world of the Shire all around them even though the world in the 1900's progressed as fast as it could to insanity.

The Shire is the place where home and family are the center of everything - where life is lived as if people mattered.

It is where the young are nurtured and protected until they are prepared to 'leave the nest and fly on their own'.  It is a place of games and fun and parties.  It is a place hidden away from the grossness of the ways of the world.  (Think Mordor).

The Shire is nestled in a natural setting with a love of nature and the care of it being interwoven into the daily lives of all who live there.

It is a place of ideals - love of neighbor, love of country, love of God.  It is where duty, self-sacrifice, fair play, and honesty are respected and are not laughed at.

I love the 'Shire'.  I have longed for it, tried to hang on to it, worked to build it into my own life.  The pictures and poems on my sidebar and in my posts are some of the many things that  invoke the memory of the Shire to me. Some would say that the literature I read and the writing I do is just nostalgia;  but I know that it is a search for truth and the true way of living in a world gone mad.