A feast is a celebratory religious observance, the contrast to a fast.  The root of the word has more to do with “festival” and the religious meaning has more to do with antiphons than to do with food.  Yet we apply the third meaning of a sumptuous meal to each of these instances.  I wonder what could be made if we used the more religious definition?

• 05.015 I guess it’s a choice feast;
• 08.048 and there was a great feast going on,
• 08.056 A feast would be no good,
• 08.057 But without a feast
• 08.057 in the woodland feast;
• 08.071 The feast that they now saw was greater
• 08.071 and at the head of a long line of feasters
• 08.104 It had thought of starting the feast while the others were away,
• 08.131 The feasting people were Wood-elves,
• 09.024 There is a feast tonight
• 09.025 but for the king’s feasts only,
• 09.029 As a matter of fact there was a great autumn feast
• 09.039 They had left a merry feast
• 09.042 He’s been having a little feast all to himself
• 09.046 you began your feasting early
• 09.048 is pushed into the river for the Lake-men to feast on for nothing!’
• 10.009 and the boatmen went to feast in Lake-town.
• 10.026 He is at feast,’
• 13.045 the hall of feasting
• 15.034 and feasting by the fires.
• 18.039 then the feast shall indeed be splendid!’
• 18.051 and wide to feast at Beorn’s bidding.
• 19.043 and fruit and feasting in autumn.

“feast, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 25 May 2016.

Caveat lector, sometimes these are animals and sometimes food.  Fellow scholars exploring fish in the Hobbit must judge for themselves whether each instance is about a comestible.  Almost all of them are in Chapter 5, just as we would wish them to be.

• 05.011 fish whose fathers swam in,
• 05.011 also there are other things more slimy than fish.
• 05.012 He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish,
• 05.012 Sometimes he took a fancy for fish from the lake,
• 05.012 and sometimes neither goblin nor fish came back.
• 05.050 a fish jumped out
• 05.051 Fish!
• 05.051 fish!’ he cried.
• 05.051 It is fish!’
• 05.054 talking of fish,
• 05.054 Fish on a little table,
• 05.087 and tired of fish.
• 05.128 cold fish,
• 14.007 Anything from floods to poisoned fish.
• 14.018 and poisoned fish,
• 16.018 That was no fish!’

The staff of life!  OED affirms that it’s but meal and moisture, kneaded and baked.  The word comes from roots meaning “bit” or “piece” or “morsel”.

Before 1200 bread had quite displaced hláf as the name of the substance, leaving to the latter the sense ‘loaf’ (an amount, LFSA) which it has since retained. It thus appears that a word originally meaning ‘piece, bit, frustum’, has passed through the senses of ‘piece of bread’, ‘broken bread’, into that of ‘bread’ as a substance; while at the same time the original word for ‘bread, loaf, panis’ has been restricted to the undivided article as shaped and baked, the ‘loaf’. The Lowland Scotch and northern dialect use of piece illustrates anew the first step in this transition, for it is the regular word for a piece of bread, as in ‘give the bairn a piece’,

• 02.116 Now they had bread
• 07.121 and fat again on bread
• 08.145 and after he had got over his thankfulness for bread
• 18.048 and eaten much of your bread.’

“bread, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 18 May 2016.

In the excellent history of this word, “provision” has meant anything from food to providence to cold, hard cash.  I’m thinking of

[02.116] Their own provisions were very scanty.

but do I include “provide” in my search?  I think I do, since Latin pro-videre, to see ahead (and therefore remember to pack one’s pocket-handkerchief) clearly leads us to the noun pro-vision (oh!  and look at the not incorrect but unexpected form pro-vidence up above!)

So!  Not all of these are food words, friends, take care when you are doing your food research.

• 01.002 provided with polished chairs,
• 02.116 Their own provisions were very scanty.
• 02.123 our small stock of provisions.
• 03.034 and provisions light to carry
• 07.126 He would provide ponies for each of them,
• 07.126 I will provide you with skins for carrying water,
• 08.007 for they were extremely careful with their provisions.
• 10.045 and many provisions.
• 11.001 with other provisions
• 12.020 in size but provided with a bitter sword
• 16.042 so an escort was provided for him,

“provide, v.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 18 May 2016.

“provision, n.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2016. Web. 18 May 2016.