Food supplies for elves

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by The Mouth of Sauron

If Lorien was 100% woodland, how and where did the elves that lived there get their food and wine?

Similarly, how did travelling companies of elves like Gildor's folk feed themselves? For that matter, there is no reference to fields or orchards at Rivendell either.

I believe they got the bulk of their food from Seven-Elven.

[mhagain]

The simplest answer is that Lórien wasn't 100% woodland, and I'm not aware of any writing that supports that notion.

In fact, in the Lembas essay in the Peoples of Middle-earth we have an explicit statement that Lórien contained glades and clearings where Lembas at least was grown:

The Eldar grew it in guarded lands and sunlit glades

[Tuor in Gondolin]

Elves frequent 7-11? Ridiculous. They're too classy. It's Wawa for them. Sammiches made to order---and on whole wheat!

But seriously, there is a problem. Elves seem to be essentially hunters-gatherers, with support from early agricultural type growing. So a question how large their numbers could be to fend off orcs---better keep that Ring of Power handy, Lady G.

[Mithalwen]

I think there is an essay on Lembas that says it's special corn could be grown in clearings. If it is in UT I can look it up but HoME is in storage,,, so yes Lorien probably wasn't all wooded.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

In any case, Lórien was still fairly a big place. There probably would be exactly some glades where you could grow local Elvish forest-corn, whatever it might be...

Somehow anyway, in general, the image of an Elf toiling in a field doesn't really seem all right, so I would guess the Elves would mostly live on the diet of "what the earth gives freely"; of course the regime would be probably somewhat different in hyper-effective and "technological" military states of the Noldor in the First Age.

Anyway, lembas, as we are told, was not a normal bread (such as the normal part of daily diet, something you put butter on every morning), but a kind of special travel rations for long journeys and so on. So one really did not need that much space to grow enough for the use (mostly it would probably mean supplying the guards who partroled the edges of Lórien, and how many would there be, especially with the diminishment of the amount of Elves present?).

As for other things mentioned in the first post, I am fairly certain at least Rivendell would have orchards, and I see no problem of a few hilltops in Lórien having some nice fruit trees on them. Or even if not, I can imagine the Wood-Elves thriving on a diet of 90% berries fairly well - or to be fair, hunters would have a lot to add as well, and there you have a decent diet already. (I mean, look at places such as Finland.)

[Inziladun]

As for Elves tilling the earth, maybe Lórien's special situation with Galadriel helped with that.
Her gift to Sam of the "turbo" soil, which caused accelerated growth of plants, might demonstrate the capability of the Galadhrim to have crops that required a very short growth and harvest time. Lórien also seems to have enjoyed temperate weather even in Winter, and that can't have hurt agricultural prospects.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

As for Elves tilling the earth, maybe Lórien's special situation with Galadriel helped with that.
Her gift to Sam of the "turbo" soil, which caused accelerated growth of plants, might demonstrate the capability of the Galadhrim to have crops that required a very short growth and harvest time. Lórien also seems to have enjoyed temperate weather even in Winter, and that can't have hurt agricultural prospects.

We know that the soil from Galadriel's orchard allows vegetation to grow more quickly, and we also know that Elves do cut down trees, as they have wooden boats, so I think clearings with fast growing crops are very likely.

That's Lorien sorted, but what about the Woodland Realm? Do they exist on wine, given all the barrels, or did they ever import some nibbles to go with all the booze?

[Mithalwen]

I think elves did cultivate food from what I remember of the traditional but not binding gender role divisions in the same volume of HoME as Laws and Customs if not LACE itself. However certainly intensive agriculture seems unlikely.

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Somehow anyway, in general, the image of an Elf toiling in a field doesn't really seem all right, so I would guess the Elves would mostly live on the diet of "what the earth gives freely"; of course the regime would be probably somewhat different in hyper-effective and "technological" military states of the Noldor in the First Age.

It was indeed:

Originally Posted by The Lay of the Children of Húrin

...they came to a country kindly tended;
through flowery frith and fair acres
they fared, and found of folk empty
the leas and leasows and the lawns of Narog,
the teeming tilth by trees enfolded
twixt hills and river. The hoes unrecked
in the fields were flung, and fallen ladders
in the long grass lay of the lush orchards.

The scene is Túrin and Flinding approaching the gates of Nargothrond and illustrates that at least the Noldor did practice a micture of horti- and agriculture. (This, or at least the last two and a half verses, was in some prominent Downer's signature for quite a while; don't remember whose, but that's why the quote stuck with me.)

[Faramir Jones]

Tolkien did briefly comment on the economic situations of Gondor, the Shire and the Blue Mountains in a 25th September 1954 letter to Naomi Mitchison:

Gondor has sufficient 'townlands' and fiefs with a good water and road approach tp provide for its population; and clearly has many industries though these are hardly alluded to. The Shire is placed in a water and mountain situation and a distance from the sea and a latitude that would give it a natural fertility, quite apart from the stated fact that it was a well-tended region when they took it over (no doubt with a good deal of older arts and crafts). The Shire-hobbits have no very great need of metals, but the Dwarfs are agents; and in the east of the Mountains of Lune are some of their mines (as shown in the earlier legends): no doubt the reason, or one of them, for their often crossing the Shire.