I find it poignant and comforting that the kettle, silent since Beorn’s house, returns in Chapter 19, the healing chapter.
And another food storage vessel! Gandalf’s contained mead in Chapter 7. There are no such good and comforting things as jugs and their contents after Chapter 9.
Since we have counted food preparation methods among our food words, I will also count food storage vessels.
Of course Bifur assumes that our industrious hobbit has jam. I am disconcerted to find that “jam” is not in The Ten Thousand. British breakfast reporters, you have been put on notice!
Everyone knows what honey is, but there is none mentioned in Bilbo’s larder, the feasts of Rivendell, or the food of the lake-men. Only Beorn the bear-changer keeps bees and in his house honey figures largely.
Do you suppose that the Dwarves intentionally did Bilbo a favor by cleaning out his perishable goods before whisking him away on an adventure?
There’s more threatening to fry than actual frying going on, but it’s only a few mentions.
Thank you, Beorn, for your hospitality –
The word “delicious” is around the five-thousandth most common word of British written English. There are not enough people writing about the amazing breakfasts I encountered in little rural B&Bs!
The only cellars in The Hobbit are Bilbo’s at Bag-End and those of the Elvenking, and they are properly filled with food!
Update: 2016.10.04 – “cellar” is listed both as common and uncommon in my lemmatized source, although “cellars is always uncommon (less frequent than the most common ten thousand).
words that you were saying 