Dangerous Topic: Elven Cuisine

[aearwen]

Help!! Please!!

I am looking for something that the Elves would eat on a regular basis that would turn Gilraen's stomach. I'm establishing (with great glee) that Elves do NOT like the texture or taste of melted cheese. I'd like something that would be served often in Imladris that Gilraen would rather she never saw again.

I thought of sashimi (raw fish) but I don't see the Elves NOT cooking meat. And my mind is drawing a blank when it comes to anything else that might be an acquired or cultural taste. I don't mind if it's a little outrageous – after all, some of the best (as in wildest) arguments in the fandom have been over what Elves do or don't eat or cultivate.

[elfscribe]

May 27, 2010 20:22:06 GMT -6 aearwen said:

Help!! Please!!

I am looking for something that the Elves would eat on a regular basis that would turn Gilraen's stomach. I'm establishing (with great glee) that Elves do NOT like the texture or taste of melted cheese. I'd like something that would be served often in Imladris that Gilraen would rather she never saw again.

I thought of sashimi (raw fish) but I don't see the Elves NOT cooking meat. And my mind is drawing a blank when it comes to anything else that might be an acquired or cultural taste. I don't mind if it's a little outrageous – after all, some of the best (as in wildest) arguments in the fandom have been over what Elves do or don't eat or cultivate.

What about bird's nest soup?

[russandol]

Crushed tigernut drink (called "horchata" [slent "h"!!], sweet and very refreshing)
Chorizo (pork meat and paprika sausage)
Black pudding (blood and rice sausage - my mum makes scrambled eggs with it, pine kernels and raisins - yummy!)
Baby eels (fried with garlic and chilli)
Octopus (boiled, then served with olive oil, salt and paprika)
Barnacles (boiled in salty water)
Frog's legs (fried in batter)

All of these above we eat in Spain. I like all of them except for the last one, which I haven't tried, I sort of feel sorry for the poor things, there is no mistaking what they are... I won't go into unusual parts of animals we eat in Spain, but google "criadillas" if you want to find out more.

The following ones I have seen in other parts of the world:

Fried grasshoppers
Baked lizard *** hides under rock ***

Then there is caviar - would Elves eat it?

Here in England there is a yearly stinging nettle eating competition.

And Haggis in Scotland... now, that is a cultural thing! ;D

[erulisse]

In this country (US) one of the ickiest things that are fresh water food are fresh water eels. Although they are considered highly prized, they are most certainly very icky. Another thing that is cherished by many of my parent's generation and older is tripe, but I have never been very keen on that at all. Just two small suggestions from someone who doesn't cook.

- Erulisse (one L)

[sanna]

Lampreys. Some find them delicious, and up North people have a big do when the fishing season begins, but personally I consider them to be a bit too low on the food chain for me to want to eat them.

And we Finns have a traditional Easter pudding which, while truly delicious, looks almost exactly like poo. It's made of rye flour, malt and spices, cooked very slowly so it sweetens and then eaten with cream. I like it, although the after effect is a bit like trying to digest a bowling ball...

[kymahalei]

May 28, 2010 5:44:53 GMT -6 erulisse said:

In this country (US) one of the ickiest things that are fresh water food are fresh water eels. Although they are considered highly prized, they are most certainly very icky. Another thing that is cherished by many of my parent's generation and older is tripe, but I have never been very keen on that at all. Just two small suggestions from someone who doesn't cook.

- Erulisse (one L)

Erulisse, your Minnesota location reminds me of that Minnesota Scadinavian treat, lutefisk, fish soaked in lye.

[Gandalfs apprentice]

Food tastes are culturally determined, so I think you can make up any old thing you want.

Maybe you could invent something that comes from the Spiders in Mirkwood? So that the Rivendell Elves, but not the Dunedain, would have access to it in trade, perhaps.

Spider milk! Yum!

Or, alternatively, Lorien. Mallorn leaves, fermented. Mummified bugs that grow on Mallorns. Something like that.

I would make it something definitely Elvish-seeming for best effect, as opposed to exotic by our own modern (Western) tastes.

[erulisse]

May 28, 2010 12:37:33 GMT -6 kymahalei said:

Erulisse, your Minnesota location reminds me of that Minnesota Scadinavian treat, lutefisk, fish soaked in lye.

Oh yeah, lutefisk and gefilte fish - two things I really could live without eating again during this walk on Arda.

I think the thread about localized cuisine holds fruit. I can just imagine the elves of Lorien loving roasted caterpillers from the leaves of the Mallorn trees where personally, I think I would rather pass on eating them. But as I recall, the original post mentioned Gilraen, and since Imladris is a more northern location...that's one reason why I focused on fresh water eels (waters of the Bruinen and lots of waterfalls, don't-cha know - LOL).

- Erulisse (one L)

[Morthoron]

May 27, 2010 20:22:06 GMT -6 aearwen said:

Help!! Please!!

I am looking for something that the Elves would eat on a regular basis that would turn Gilraen's stomach. I'm establishing (with great glee) that Elves do NOT like the texture or taste of melted cheese. I'd like something that would be served often in Imladris that Gilraen would rather she never saw again.

Don't Elves eat Dwarves? You know, finger food?

There is a bar in Wyandotte, MI that serves muskrat. I am not kidding.

[elfscribe]

May 27, 2010 20:22:06 GMT -6 aearwen said:

Help!! Please!!

I am looking for something that the Elves would eat on a regular basis that would turn Gilraen's stomach. I'm establishing (with great glee) that Elves do NOT like the texture or taste of melted cheese.

Giving new meaning to the phrases "cheesed off" or "cheesy" or "cutting the cheese" ;D

Personally, I think in Imladris, they might enjoy the equivalent of Rocky Mountain oysters. I've never had the nerve to try them.

LOL - now the ad on the header is for pizza, which I imagine would be anathema for cheese-hating elves.

[aearwen]

Hmmmm... I'm really torn between lutefisk and fresh-water eels in a butter and garlic sauce.

*shudder*

HEY DARTH!!!

I need a good Elvish word for lutefisk! ;D

[pandemonium]

May 29, 2010 23:10:27 GMT -6 aearwen said:

Hmmmm... I'm really torn between lutefisk and fresh-water eels in a butter and garlic sauce.

In the Pandë!verse, it's the Dwarves who are all over lutefisk. Not to mention tiutarinci.

A "canonical" Elvish food aversion (and a fairly implausible one IMO) is given in footnote 51 of Ch.X, HoMe XII, Peoples of Middle-earth in which JRRT notes that the "Drûgs" or Woses like mushrooms.

This followed the account of the knowledge of the Drûgs concerning plants, and reads:

To the astonishment of Elves and other Men they ate funguses

with pleasure, many of which looked to others ugly and

dangerous; some kinds which they specially liked they caused

to grow near their dwellings. The Eldar did not eat these

things. The Folk of Haleth, taught by the Druedain, made

some use of them at need; and if they were guests they ate what

was provided in courtesy, and without fear. The other Atani

eschewed them, save in great hunger when astray in the wild,

for few among them had the knowledge to distinguish the

wholesome from the bad, and the less wise called them ork-

plants and supposed them to have been cursed and blighted by

Morgoth.]

The eels and river lampreys indeed have a certain ick factor. I also really liked NiRi's "spiderboil" in What's for Dinner? but I doubt that there are edible lobs in Rivendell.