The New Hobbit Hole

[SuziQ]

Thanks for that great HTML site, OT. Everything I wanted to know in one place!!

[Overtaxed]

I wanted to post that table with the colors and the hexcodes, but it wasn't an image and I was too lazy to mess with it last night.

[RMDupree]

Speaking of biscuits, how about those anise cookies? They are crispy on the outside and cakey on the inside.

I was also thinking of those egg biscuit cookies, but they are too light colored to be like lembas.

[HairOfTheDog]

They look too crunchy - like a cracker.

Cornbread.... think thin cornbread!

[RMDupree]

That's what happens with a dial up 56k. :(

[2Jedismom]

Ok, the elves called it cake...Gimli refered to it once as being better than "honey-cake" but Tolkien refered to it as a wafer, more thank cake. Sometimes elf-cakes.

I maintain that "wafer" was the primary word used by Tolkien and only the "characters" called them cakes, because they didn't know a better word for them...

[2Jedismom]

Gimli broke off a "crisp corner", though...

[SuziQ]

the Bothy Band

I like the Bothy Band and Planxty. Both were featured on the folk show we used to hear in NJ. That was our first real intro to Celtic and British folk music. We enjoyed Steeleye Span and Clannad, but liked the mostly instrumental stuff too.

[Overtaxed]

'Nilla Wafers....snack of the Elves.

[Corin Stormhands]

And we all know that Elves couldn't have been muching on that!

You beat me to it!

[HairOfTheDog]

Well, cornbread, when it is thin, can break crisp!

[2Jedismom]

LOL I actually think you are closer to the fact with Nilla wafers! Think about it...they are golden on the outside and cream on the inside, crisp and crumbly and sweet. I just don't know if they were around when Tolkien was writing and I just get idea he was describing something he liked...and the digestive biscuits were around then and common.

[Corin Stormhands]

I maintain that "wafer" was the primary word used by Tolkien and only the "characters" called them cakes, because they didn't know a better word for them...

You know 2J, there's something strangely disturbing about that...

[Overtaxed]

'Nilla Wafers....snack of the Elves.

We have the Nabisco folk of the Sindarin Elves battling the Keebler Elves for domination of the snack food market.

[SuziQ]

Now I'm going to have to make biscuits at home some time soon!

I love Buttermilk Biscuits, and it is definitely the baking time of year! I discovered a delicious Trappist Preserve; Kadota Fig! I haven't had fig preserves since I was a teenager! We used to have a couple of fig trees in the yard of our old house, and Mama used to make preserves. They were SO good, and the Trappist ones bring back those great memories!

[2Jedismom]

Digestive biscuits are more like a cookie than a cracker.

[Corin Stormhands]

Just heard on the news. This morning's victim has died.

[SuziQ]

We'll be fine. It's just not pretty right now.

I'll put your family on our Parish Prayer Line. You'll have lots of folks lifting you and yours up to God.

[ItsOurTimeNow]

But it was also referred to as "Waybread". The term 'Bread' would lead me to think of something slightly soft.

What about this? What if it's more like a semi-thin bread boule? Crispy on the outside, warm and chewey on the inside. Maybe about 3 inches thick?

[2Jedismom]

Well, Tolkien had a kind of atmosphere going with the characters, you must admit and if he'd had them saying a bunch of things that were inconsistent with their times then it would have sounded silly. So he refered to them as wafers when he was describing them...for example, here the elves talk about the Lembas

"All the same, we bid you spare the food,' they said. 'Eat little at a time, and only at need. For these things are given to serve you when all else fails. The cakes will keep sweet for many many days, if they are unbroken and left in their leaf-wrappings, as we have brought them."

And here is a time when Tolkien is refering to them in the story:

`Did you see them again, Mr. Frodo?' asked Sam, as they sat, stiff and chilled, munching wafers of lembas, in the cold grey of early morning.