Lembas

[Neithan]

Just a side note, over in the States we have this horrific hardtack bread that soldiers used to eat before the WWII. If it was eaten by the British in the Great war, Tolkien must obviously have eaten some of this "mineral" and hoped with all his heart for hardtack that was actually nutritional, and somewhat pleasing to the palette. Thus, a tasty, useful waybread.

Yes, I thought of hardtack when Gimli talked about Cram. You might say that Lembas is the Elvish version of Cram, or more likely that Cram is a failed attempt to copy Lembas.