Are Elves vegatarian? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Alfirin · 05-15-2014, 04:10 PM

The way I try and reconcile the line and the sausage is by assuming that the elves of Rivendell are not WHOLLY vegetarian, but they have a diet more along the lines of a Mediterrenean/southern Peasant line, where meat is often a flavoring/accent in a dish, not the main feature. And that this might be in contrast to the normal dwarven diet, which is much more along the "meat and potatoes/starch" line (since the dwarves tend to trade for a lot of thier food, they may be used to mostly eating things that keep and travel well. Merry does apologize to Gimli for their being no "green stuff" in the quote Tuor found, but it is unclear if he is aplogizing for something that he actually thinks Gimli would want to eat, or he is making a slightly humorous comment based on the difference between what would be normal fare for a dwarf and hobbit diets (which probably DO have a fair amount of vegetables, given that gardening is a viable profession and the love the hobbits have for gardens.)
Speaking of alternate foods (now that we are occasionally expanding into other things elves may or may not eat. Doe you think, if elves are not big meat eaters, they eat a lot of dairy, or is their diet more along the lines of veganisim? I'm sort of two minds here. On one hand, since dairy tends to require a fair amount of pastureland (for whatever animals you are milking to graze on) a part of me want to think not, at least not for Lothlorien )which seems to be mostly surrounded by trees and Mirkwood which is more or less the same (Rivindell's valley may be bigger so they may have room for pastureland.) On the other hand, something in me keeps thinking they do (it may be that when I feast heard lembas called waybread, I though they meant wheybread i.e. bread made with milk whey instead of water.) There is also the question of if the elves really are vegan I'm not sure how much veggie protein is around. ME seems to have such New World crops as potatoes and tobacco (and tomatoes too, in one of the early drafts of the hobbit) so they might have common beans. But if they don't your veggie protein choices seem a little limited (you'd have lentils, starchy peas (like the Carlin pea) Broad (fava) beans, chickpeas (probably only in southern places like Gondor and the Harads and so not in third age elf zones really) grasspea (maybe) edible lupines (again, a big maybe) and after that I (who am a botanist) run dry of guesses.

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05-15-2014, 04:10 PM	#11
Alfirin Shade of Carn Dûm Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 435	The way I try and reconcile the line and the sausage is by assuming that the elves of Rivendell are not WHOLLY vegetarian, but they have a diet more along the lines of a Mediterrenean/southern Peasant line, where meat is often a flavoring/accent in a dish, not the main feature. And that this might be in contrast to the normal dwarven diet, which is much more along the "meat and potatoes/starch" line (since the dwarves tend to trade for a lot of thier food, they may be used to mostly eating things that keep and travel well. Merry does apologize to Gimli for their being no "green stuff" in the quote Tuor found, but it is unclear if he is aplogizing for something that he actually thinks Gimli would want to eat, or he is making a slightly humorous comment based on the difference between what would be normal fare for a dwarf and hobbit diets (which probably DO have a fair amount of vegetables, given that gardening is a viable profession and the love the hobbits have for gardens.) Speaking of alternate foods (now that we are occasionally expanding into other things elves may or may not eat. Doe you think, if elves are not big meat eaters, they eat a lot of dairy, or is their diet more along the lines of veganisim? I'm sort of two minds here. On one hand, since dairy tends to require a fair amount of pastureland (for whatever animals you are milking to graze on) a part of me want to think not, at least not for Lothlorien )which seems to be mostly surrounded by trees and Mirkwood which is more or less the same (Rivindell's valley may be bigger so they may have room for pastureland.) On the other hand, something in me keeps thinking they do (it may be that when I feast heard lembas called waybread, I though they meant wheybread i.e. bread made with milk whey instead of water.) There is also the question of if the elves really are vegan I'm not sure how much veggie protein is around. ME seems to have such New World crops as potatoes and tobacco (and tomatoes too, in one of the early drafts of the hobbit) so they might have common beans. But if they don't your veggie protein choices seem a little limited (you'd have lentils, starchy peas (like the Carlin pea) Broad (fava) beans, chickpeas (probably only in southern places like Gondor and the Harads and so not in third age elf zones really) grasspea (maybe) edible lupines (again, a big maybe) and after that I (who am a botanist) run dry of guesses.