Where in Mordor is there food?

[Gorin Icearms]

I was pondering this the other day. Mordor for the most part is a desolate waste, right? So where do the orcs (and other bad guys) get food? Aside from eating each other, I don't see how they can have enough for a decent meal. And what about the oliphants?

I guess part of it could come from the lands they had taken over, but still...

[Lady of the Lake]

I'm sure they had a McDonald's somewhere...

[Eruhen]

As the Dark Tower and Minas Morgul branches of McDonald's, Mordor's food comes from the southern lands around the lake of Nurnen, where the land isn't a desolate volcanic plateau like Gorgoroth is.

P.S.: You should try the Orc-burgers at the Mordor branches of McDonald's. They're great! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Lady of the Lake]

Have you ever had a Mc Hobbit Meal? You get an orc burger, small flies and some regular folk.

[Gorin Icearms]

The Ent Shakes are good too, but they'll make you grow and put hair on your toes.

[Lady of the Lake]

Maybe they had "Hungry Urgluks" at Orthanc.
Ok this is getting lame [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Lady of the Lake]

I know they imported bananas from Rohan.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

You'd have to be bananas to go from Rohan to Mordor.

*Cringes at his own pun and awaits the inevitable barrage of bread rolls*

[Eruhen]

This is getting pretty stupid, guys.

But have you ever had a Filet-o-Elf sandwich?
Wait, that's really sick! [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

[Birdland]

Shagrat: …you know what they call a Mordor Pounder with Cheese in Gondor?

Gorbag: They don't call it a Mordor Pounder with Cheese?

Shagrat: No, they got the Elvish system there, they wouldn't know what a Mordor Pounder is.

Gorbag: What'd they call it?

Shagrat: Elessar with Cheese.

Gorbag: Elessar with Cheese. What'd they call a Big Ring?

Shagrat: Big Ring’s a Big Ring, but they call it Te Big Ring.

[Airetauriel]

SHELOB'S MENU

A juicy hobbit burger wrapped in an elvish bun - with extra sauce and the tasty hobbit-foot cheese. A delicacy.
A side order of onion rings - special promotion - find the one ring and win world domination!

AND ONLY FOR TODAY! A McMORDOR SPECIAL! - TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!

Not too sure about the delivery boy though - he looks like he could use a square meal himself!

Oh, and the Mordor branch of Burger King have lauched a rival offer -skewered Boromir kebabs washed down with Anduin-water.

Oh, it can only get better....

[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Airetauriel [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

PS I invite you all to my Balrog BBQ on the slopes of Caradhras, sometime later this month. Apparently it tastes like chicken.

[Aralaithiel]

Actually, I prefer the McDwarven-nuggets.
And remember, Eowyn's ride-thru is open late!

[Mayla Took]

Ha ha! That is funny! But I have to admit, reading this stuff is making me sick to my stomach! Uuuuhhh! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Mayla Took]

ooh! Wait! I just thought of a good one! Don't forget the nine peice Frodo Fingers! Ha ha!

[Bruce MacCulloch]

Birdland, you should post that in the "What if LoTR had been written by someone else" thread. (I think that's the name of the thread.)

[Gorin Icearms]

Haha Mayla, that's a good one. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Aralaithiel]

I LOVE IT!!!!!!! Pulp Fiction is another one of my favorite movies! Definitely write that in the "What if LOTR was written by someone else" thread, Birdland! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
Mayla, that was good! I was going to post that, but you beat me to it! COOL!!!!
ROTFLMAO!!!! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]
Now to go get some towels and sop up my tears of laughter! Oh...my sides are splitting!!!

[ March 01, 2002: Message edited by: Aralaithiel ]

[avarerniliel]

Oh my.... [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

[Birdland]

Well, Gorin, I don't know if you got the answer to your question or not, but you sure started a ROTFLMAOS thread!

By the way: Sam asked the same question in ROTK, and Tolkien explained the whole thing there.

(Frodo Fingers...Heeeeeeeee!)

[Aralaithiel]

I think we've all been in need of a good laugh! I know I have!
What sauce would you recommend with the Frodo fingers? I prefer the sweet-n-sour (it's red, you know! [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img])! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Dior]

It's the freckin' ash plain in the southwest of Mordor. Ash is a very good fertilizer, especially from a huge volcanoe like mount doom.

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Christian Dior, welcome to the Downs. There were great wains of food brought in from the slave-worked fields of Sauron's Eastern territories.

Anyone know what happened in those lands when Sauron fell?

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

A party?

[Kuruharan]

Well, in a way, yes. Elessar gave it to the slaves to be their own.

Unfortunately the McDonalds was closed down to make way for a Pzza hut, KFC and Burger King.
I recommend the "Harmless creatures which have brutally killed Burgers", or If your a veggie why not try eating Rocks! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[Kalimac]

To be slightly more serious, maybe the Orcs *do* eat each other - they're certainly happy enough to kill each other (there are what, about fifty Orcs killed in the tower between the time Frodo is picked up by the Patrol and the time Sam gets past the Watchers?) And there's a hint in TTT (Pippin not wanting the eat the Orc-food, the flesh of "he dared not guess what creature") that whatever it is the Orcs eat, it's not something you'd want to showcase on the cover of Cook's.

There's not much else in the vicinity except thorns, and not everything would travel well from the southern countries they dominated. Maybe they could take some grain and make hardtack, and dry a few vegetables and fruits (though Orcs don't really seem like the vegetarian types) besides that they'd probably steal animals and use them for food - you can imagine that not all the horses stolen from the Rohirrim went for Nazgul steeds, unfortunately - a lot of them probably ended up in Ugluk's and his compatriots' ration tins. Besides, in "The Hobbit" isn't it mentioned that the goblins eat ponies and pretty much everything else? So probably hardtack, dried fruit and horsemeat for choice, fellow Orc when hard up - and in the last days of war, stuck in a land where nothing grew, they probably were.

[Bêthberry]

This question raises anthropological issues of enormous import.

At what stage was the development of orcish culture? Were they hunter/gatherers or had they entered the agricultural stage yet? Did they have specialisation of labour or were they all just fighting grunts?

Another aspect concerns she-orcs. In early cultures, women were primarily responsible for horticulture--the cultivation of grains, herbs, veggies. But what do we know of she-orcs? Were there hort-orcs and were they primarily female?

[ninja91]

I thought that prisoners worked the fields of Nurn, which were surprisingly fertile. The food from there was then brought up to feed the armies of Sauron. Around Lake Nurnen, the lands were farmable (if that is a word).

[High King Fingolfin]

I always had the impression that while the Orcs where fairly proficient in metals, due to Sauron's influence, they had neither the ability nor the inclination to work farmland. So that might be why Sauron used slaves, also, not having the Orcs growing their own food allows more of them to be used for military purposes.

[Istari]

hmmmm... good question. I bet the oiluphants ate orcs though. And the orcs ate????????????????????maybe wandering hobbits hehe

[Boromir88]

But what do we know of she-orcs? Were there hort-orcs and were they primarily female?~Bethberry

We aren't told much about female orcs, but I think that a good guess would be that they did do a lot of horiculture:

There must have been orc women. But in stories that seldom see the Orcs except as soldiers of armies in the service of evillords we naturally would not learn much about their lives. Not much was known.~The Munby Letter

Bottomline is we really don't know squat, except that their are orc-women and they do have little orc babies.

I really don't think there would be a problem with slave labor here. Yes Orcs were sent to fight, but also we have 'snagas' (or slaves) that were a smaller breed of orcs to do tasks such as slave labor. Also, he had a healthy influx of Men coming into his service. Prisoners were often used as a force of labor, he could use the prisoners the Men had held as well.

[latando angaina]

Lord of the Rings:

‘I don’t like the look of things at all,’ said Sam. ‘Pretty hopeless, I call it - saving that where there’s such a lot of folk there must be wells or water, not to mention food. And these are Men not Orcs, or my eyes are all wrong.’
Neither he nor Frodo knew anything of the great slave-worked fields away south in this wide realm, beyond the fumes of the Mountain by the dark sad waters of Lake Núrnen; nor of the great roads that ran away east and south to tributary lands, from which the soldiers of the Tower brought long waggon-trains of goods and booty and fresh slaves. Here in the northward regions were the mines and forges, and the musterings of long-planned war; and here the Dark Power, moving its armies like pieces on the board, was gathering them together

[ninja91]

About orc-women, they obviously have to exist, unless the orc race can somehow reproduce...by themselves...

Either way, I do not like to go into the biology of the stuff. I think that orcs were created in mockery of men and elves in the first place, and I would then also think that females as well as men would be represented in the orcs' race.

Just another question to ponder: Where would the females dwell? Barad Dur is not exactly an orcs' idea of a honeymoon...

[latando angaina]

Originally Posted by ninja91

Just another question to ponder: Where would the females dwell? Barad Dur is not exactly an orcs' idea of a honeymoon...

Again:

Here in the northward regions were the mines and forges, and the musterings of long-planned war; and here the Dark Power, moving its armies like pieces on the board, was gathering them together

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Quote:
But what do we know of she-orcs? Were there hort-orcs and were they primarily female?~Bethberry

We aren't told much about female orcs, but I think that a good guess would be that they did do a lot of horiculture:
Quote:
There must have been orc women. But in stories that seldom see the Orcs except as soldiers of armies in the service of evillords we naturally would not learn much about their lives. Not much was known.~The Munby Letter

Bottomline is we really don't know squat, except that their are orc-women and they do have little orc babies.

A most fortunate find, The Munby Letter, Boro--and I must say what a delight it is to find someone else with access to the unpublished Letters which are housed at the Bodleian--but I think we should read passages subsequent to that which you quote. Orc-armies do not march on their stomachs alone and in the following passages we find that Munby has ably delineated several of the professions which she-orcs undertook to ensure that stomachs and indeed all parts of orc armies were well satiated.

Originally Posted by complete Munby letter passage

No doubt it can be surmised from their labouring in horiculture (sic) that she-orcs became dominant in one particularly needful area of orc health, that of ailments afflicting the degeneration of the mind, an attribute which was never in large measure among orcs to start with. It is said that the old women's remedy, baa'hfoil, a healing herb, was particularly helpful in redressing the more unfortunate symptoms of this condition. Other professions which I have discovered include that of flither-gathering, where orc-lasses would collect winkles and mussels for fish-market days. This was a most fortuitous first occupation, as familiarity with krimp or binding ropes, meant that as she-orcs developed they could move easily into the whip industry. In fact, I came to learn of one prosperous she-orc who with industry was able to attain such a level of income that she left off such service and became a respectable owner of an establishment that can but be marvelled at, a coffeehouse.

Based on Munby's observations--and these must of course be correlated with other papers in the unpublished Tolkien papers, as hitherto it was not known that Tolkien had any knowledge of Munby's work, I would hazard a guess that it was she-orcs, with their at first homey knowledge of horticulture who developed that huge money-making trade in coffee which, as we all know, Saruman brought into the shire.

[goldfinger]

The place where Sauron got his food from was the land of Nurn around lake Nurnen, in southern Mordor. He had slaves here who worked the fertile earth and made food for his armies.