Shout-out to Heath Dill, fabulous Renaissance caterer and Tolkien chef, who provided the provender at a recent Mythgard Movie Marathon (keep your eye on the “Activities” tab for future events). There were cold chicken and pickles, oh yes there were!
The only pantries, alas, are Bilbo’s.
Trolls need sustenance, too!
The only use of the generic “meat” is from the spiders, referring to the dwarves.
As a bee-keeper, of course Beorn would brew a fine mead. It’s a word found in northwestern Europe from Irish to Old English to Gothic since the earliest written records. It is etymologically very different from this kind of mead.
“mead, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 13 May 2015.
It’s mentioned only as foliage along the route.
“Loaf” presents us with a little mystery. Thorin says that the Lake-men will not get “even a loaf’s worth” of treasure. Does he mean “the value of a ‘prized-loaf’ (obsolete, an official assized bread-price)” or “a pile of coins the weight of an ‘assize-loaf’ (obsolete, an official assized weight of bread)?
“loaf, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 13 May 2015.
Update 2016.05.18: It is not impossible that I, Dear Readers, when searching through my word-hoard for this word lit on a sufficient substitute: “skein”.
“Larder” does come from “lard” and shows its origins as the room where bacon was stored.
“larder, n.1.” OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2015. Web. 13 May 2015.
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.
words that you were saying 