For Iain

[altariel]

From The Annotated Hobbit:

The original reading of the text (1937) was "cold chicken and tomatoes!" In 1966 Tolkien changed 'tomatoes' to 'pickles'. Why should it matter whether Bilbo's larder was stocked with tomatoes or pickles? T.A. Shippey, in The Road to Middle-earth, suggests that as Tolkien wrote the sequel to The Hobbit, and as he came to perceive the hobbits and their land as characteristically English in nature, he recognised tomatoes as foreign in origin and name. They were imports from America, like potatoes and tobacco, which were quickly adopted in England. Though Tolkien does use the word 'tobacco' in The Hobbit a handful of times, it is strictly avoided in The Lord of the Rings, where the more English-sounding 'pipeweed' is used. There, as well, potatoes are often given the more rustic name 'taters'. Tomatoes were thus out of place in the Shire as Tolkien came to perceive it.

Comments

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

frankymole says that's a lot of old cobblers, that book--the Tolkien Society doesn't seem to like it. Fascinating insight, though. I'm by no means an expert, so...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Really? I don't know what the scholarship's like - it's nice to read some interesting bits and pieces as I go through the story, though, and the illustrations from other language editions are fun.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I can't say that I'm convinced. If potatoes were OK if referred to as "taters", even though they came to England from America, why should tomatoes not be equally OK if they were called "toms"?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

"Toms and taters". Sounds right, actually, doesn't it?

[halimede.livejournal.com]

Tomatoes do seem to have a less rustic history in Britain then potatoes:

Tomatoes were first cultivated in Britain in the second half of the 16th-century but only in the late 19th-century were they adopted as a food. (http://www.countrylife.co.uk/lifecountry/food/tomato.php)

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

How strange! Why grow them at all, if not to eat them? Were they thought to be ornamental?

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Mr A. tells me that they were ornamental, and that the reason people didn't eat them is that other fruits that look like them (e.g. the fruit of the potato plant) are poisonous.

[kerravongenius.livejournal.com]

They were known as "love apples" and cionsidered an aphrodisiac.

[scribal1.livejournal.com]

Una, a couple of things in that article were quite wrong.

I am pretty deeply steeped in medieval and Renaissance illumination and calligraphy--and the 16h century "Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta" has at least a couple of illustrations of red tomatoes as well as black(purple)ones. No yellow ones though. And it was finished toward the end of the 16th century, but started toward the middle of the century. So red tomatoes were evident in Europe MUCH prior to the article stating of their presence.

ThOther herbals and manuscripts of the era show that red tomatoes came over much earlier, were more prevalent than other colors *and* were eaten, at least in Europe almost as soon as they were brought over.

There are several staple 16th century southern European recipes where the red tomato was used. Itally had even cultivated its own specific varieties of tomato by then, including the red "ribbed" tomato which was one of the first "sauce" tomatoes developed. I have illustrations of that tomato going back to 1567. Which means that the tomato had to have been cultivated for specific culinary properties well before that.

Hugs;
Hope

[scribal1.livejournal.com]

Sorry for posting before I was quite done.

I will search it out for you but I have a reprint of a 16th century English herbal that states tomatoes were good for something medicinal. I can't quite recall what it is right now... will have to drag out my renaissance books tonight. I will send you more info when I find it.

I have found that, for whatever reason, historians do not utilize art nearly as much as they could as a resource for tracking such things as the presence and use of vegetables in history.

I was looking at the "Mira Calligraphiae Monumenta" just last night and was talking to a friend about the presence of the red and black tomatoes in it, and potato flowers too. (Though I cannot remember if the potato tuber was in the book's illustrations. The book has so many tubers in the illuminations, I would have to be careful and them translated from the Latin and Arabic.)

LOL!

[halimede.livejournal.com]

I have found that, for whatever reason, historians do not utilize art nearly as much as they could as a resource for tracking such things as the presence and use of vegetables in history.

There are the eternal debates about how much in art is fancy/availability of ink and how much is factual reporting. Also, art is rarely accompanied by a sign explaining if this is an illustration of something common or exceptionally rare.

FWIW, I was at one point fair-to-middling heavily steeped in western european cookbooks of the period, and I haven't seen any recipes including tomatoes. Mind you, I wasn't *searching* for them either, so, not exactly exhaustive proof, but it does seem to suggest it wasn't a very common vegetable.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Wow, Hope, thanks for all this, very interesting. I posted this mostly to tease iainjcoleman (this is one of his favourite rants about the Jackson films), and it's turned into this incredibly erudite discussion...

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Or redfruits. Or tomberries.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

"Golden apples" is a name from the article Halimede posted, which I like.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

See, I knew Denethor wouldn't eat cherry tomatoes.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

He's probably got something against them. They might have them in Gondor, tho', something brought from Numenor, which had a vast trading empire.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

I can see Elves eating them, somehow. Definitely not Dwarves.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Dwarves would prefer turnips.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I see dwarves as being almost excclusively carnivores.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The flesh of turnips.

[kerravongenius.livejournal.com]

Yes, they'd need turnips. I can easily imagine a Dwarf eating a Cornish pasty.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Ooh, Cornish pasty, I feel peckish now.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

In Lorna Doone, which is as English as you can get, John Ridd calls potatoes batatas. Not sure what that has to do with anything, just unconnected rambling...:)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Sounds like something which should be frittered.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

They are fried, if I recall right.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Mmm...