If I'm not very much mistaken, both sassafrass and sarsaparilla are used in root beer. Now if only the Hobbits had discovered
that, the Shire might be the perfect place to live.
Regarding the New World anachronisms found in the Shire: while these anachronisms undeniably still exist in LotR and the third edition of
The Hobbit, there is some evidence that Tolkien was troubled by them. There has been much talk of tomatoes on this thread, but if I'm not mistaken, the only instance of the word in either work is from the first edition of
The Hobbit:
Quote:
|
And just bring out the cold chicken and tomatoes.
|
But in the revision Tolkien changed this to:
Quote:
|
And just bring out the cold chicken and pickles.
|
It seems quite probable that his reason for making the change was that tomatoes would indeed be an anachronism in ancient Europe. At any rate, I can't think of much other reason to change tomatoes to pickles, unless his ideas about Gandalf's appetite had changed.
It's also worth noting that, whereas he uses the word "tobacco" throughout the Hobbit, he uses the term "pipe-weed" almost exclusively in LotR. "Tobacco" is only used once in that work, and it is used by the narrator, not by any of the characters. "Potato" is also rarely used in LotR, "tater" being the preferred term. So it certainly seems to me that as the world of
The Hobbit was drawn into the larger Legendarium, Tolkien made an effort to reduce the instances and obtrusiveness of the Shire's anachronisms. The terms "pipe-weed" and "taters" are at least good English words, unlike the obviously Native American-derived "potato" and "tobacco".
The later terms also allow a little bit of room for the speculation that the articles found in LotR are not actually to be equated with the tobacco and potatoes of the New World. As others have suggested, the Hobbits' pipe-weed need not have been of the
Nicotiana genus from which modern tobacco is derived. "Taters", we may suppose, could have been some variety of tuberous root native to ancient Europe - and perhaps now extinct. The Hobbits' coffee may also have been a different kind of seed from that which is called coffee today. We might also suppose that the use of the words "coffee", "potato", and "tobacco" simply represent the modern translator's attempt to render the names of unfamiliar plants from the original Westron, the translations being based on their apparent function.
If, contrary to the above, we are to suppose that the Hobbits' coffee was indeed something very much like our own and that it derived from somewhere in Far Harad, we might explain its presence in the Shire by supposing that only Hobbits had at that time developed a taste for it. It's conceivable that it was traded through Gondor, but that it was in low demand there, and was thus obtained only as a commodity to be exchanged in the north. I admit that this seems unlikely. Another possibility is that coffee
was in fact used in Gondor - we have no explicit evidence against this. Perhaps it was used but not as a drink - it might have been used as a spice in food, for instance. A third possibility is that which has already been mentioned - that it did in fact originate far away, but that once discovered by the Hobbits it was grown locally.