Re: What's taters?
David Friedman
"Julian Flood" <j...@floodsoopsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> Pipeweed is easy. A herb that likes sun, needs a slightly milder
> climate than the shire to produce true satisfaction, it has obviously
> been smoked by hobbits for generations and makes them think that caves
> are inhabited by goblins, dragons fly around and old men can do magic.
> There's one smoking herb that is eurasian in origin which fits the
> bill.
>
> Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've found
> is asphodel, but that's not very close.
Taro is Old World.
--
Remove NOPSAM to email
www.daviddfriedman.com
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> In article <432F1147...@gmx.net>, nyra <ny...@gmx.net> wrote:
> >Julian Flood schrieb:
> >>
> >> Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've found
> >> is asphodel, but that's not very close.
> >
> >Can't remember - how did Tolkien describe them?
>
> He didn't, that's the trouble; he only has Sam wishing he had
> some because they're tasty and fill the stomach.
>
> Groundnuts/peanuts, maybe, from Africa?
Also New World, although the Portuguese brought them to West Africa
early on, which for a while led people to think they were native there.
Julian Flood
climate than the shire to produce true satisfaction, it has obviously
been smoked by hobbits for generations and makes them think that caves
are inhabited by goblins, dragons fly around and old men can do magic.
There's one smoking herb that is eurasian in origin which fits the
bill.
Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've found
is asphodel, but that's not very close.
JF
The word needed on the other thread is 'watershed'.
Alma Hromic Deckert
<j...@floodsoopsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Pipeweed is easy. A herb that likes sun, needs a slightly milder
>climate than the shire to produce true satisfaction, it has obviously
>been smoked by hobbits for generations and makes them think that caves
>are inhabited by goblins, dragons fly around and old men can do magic.
>There's one smoking herb that is eurasian in origin which fits the
>bill.
>
>Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've found
>is asphodel, but that's not very close.
>
Okay, that's enough pipeweed for you. And what ARE you smoking in that
pipe, anyway...?
A.
nyra
>
> Pipeweed is easy. A herb that likes sun, needs a slightly milder
> climate than the shire to produce true satisfaction, it has obviously
> been smoked by hobbits for generations and makes them think that caves
> are inhabited by goblins, dragons fly around and old men can do magic.
> There's one smoking herb that is eurasian in origin which fits the
> bill.
Hm, yeah, thornapple; you can also smoke the seeds. Probably the
hobbits managed to breed a less toxic variant, because usually it's
rather scarily hallucinogenic and much too poisonous to smoke it by
the ounce. It's somewhat medically helpful, but generally it has
little use apart from bashing your brains out (was also one of the
ingredients of various witch salves).
> Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've found
> is asphodel, but that's not very close.
Can't remember - how did Tolkien describe them?
--
Een koe is een merkwaardig beest; wat er ook in haar geest moge zijn,
haar laatste woord is altijd boe.
Dorothy J Heydt
Julian Flood <j...@floodsnonoclimbersnospam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>Pipeweed is easy. A herb that likes sun, needs a slightly milder
>climate than the shire to produce true satisfaction, it has obviously
>been smoked by hobbits for generations and makes them think that caves
>are inhabited by goblins, dragons fly around and old men can do magic.
>There's one smoking herb that is eurasian in origin which fits the
>bill.
Which reminds me, of course, of the Ferdinand Feghoot story by
Grendel Briarton that tells of how Feghoot once led a young
academic into a cave, gave him a drug to open his inner eye--"It's
quite harmless!"--and let him sit there. Pretty soon the scholar
cried out that he was seeing a little guy with furry feet who was
telling him a wonderful story; but it was clearly a hallucination!
"My dear Tolkien," said Ferdinand Feghoot, "I said the drug was
harmless. I never said it was non-Hobbit-forming.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Dorothy J Heydt
>> is asphodel, but that's not very close.
>
>Can't remember - how did Tolkien describe them?
He didn't, that's the trouble; he only has Sam wishing he had
some because they're tasty and fill the stomach.
Groundnuts/peanuts, maybe, from Africa? Not cooked like peanuts,
but eaten extensively in Africa and Indonesia and so on: in spite
of Tom Lehrer's remarks, apparently a peanut butter stew, aka
"groundnut chop", can be very tasty. See Gerald Durrell, _passim._
Suzanne A Blom
Julian Flood <j...@floodsoopsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:dgn16u$pbh$1...@news7.svr.pol.co.uk...
> Pipeweed is easy. A herb that likes sun, needs a slightly milder
> climate than the shire to produce true satisfaction, it has obviously
> been smoked by hobbits for generations and makes them think that caves
> are inhabited by goblins, dragons fly around and old men can do magic.
> There's one smoking herb that is eurasian in origin which fits the
> bill.
>
> Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've found
> is asphodel, but that's not very close.
>
I think salsify has an edible root. Some carrots are white.
lclough
> Julian Flood schrieb:
>
>>Pipeweed is easy. A herb that likes sun, needs a slightly milder
>>climate than the shire to produce true satisfaction, it has obviously
>>been smoked by hobbits for generations and makes them think that caves
>>are inhabited by goblins, dragons fly around and old men can do magic.
>>There's one smoking herb that is eurasian in origin which fits the
>>bill.
>
>
> Hm, yeah, thornapple; you can also smoke the seeds. Probably the
> hobbits managed to breed a less toxic variant, because usually it's
> rather scarily hallucinogenic and much too poisonous to smoke it by
> the ounce. It's somewhat medically helpful, but generally it has
> little use apart from bashing your brains out (was also one of the
> ingredients of various witch salves).
>
>
>>Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've found
>>is asphodel, but that's not very close.
>
>
> Can't remember - how did Tolkien describe them?
>
Po-ta-toes, rare ballast for an empty belly.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
Recent short fiction: PARADOX, Autumn 2003
http://home.nyc.rr.com/paradoxmag//index.html
Upcoming short fiction in FIRST HEROES (TOR, May '04)
http://members.aol.com/wenamun/firstheroes.html
nyra
If Tolkien doesn't imply anything detailed about them, how about
chestnuts? Definitely nice tasting and filling, should make an
interesting addition to a stew (didn't Sam dream of 'taters' added to
a piece of rabbit he had?), could arguably be grown in the Shire.
Julian Flood
"Suzanne A Blom" wrote
> >
> > Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've
found
> > is asphodel, but that's not very close.
> >
> Turnips, parsnips, celeriac, rutabaga(like that name--& it has the
"ta")? &
> I think salsify has an edible root. Some carrots are white.
But then they would have been translated as such -- that's why the
cannabis was called 'leaf'. The root must be starchy, but not one of
the normal things like Jerusalem artichokes (which are also
disqualified by being a New World plant.) That's why I chose asphodel.
Don't eat the skilla.
Pig nuts?
JF
Dorothy J Heydt
Julian Flood <j...@floodsnonoclimbersnospam.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"Suzanne A Blom" wrote
>
>> >
>> > Taters, now, I can't find a tater. The nearest so far that I've
>found
>> > is asphodel, but that's not very close.
>> >
>> Turnips, parsnips, celeriac, rutabaga(like that name--& it has the
>"ta")? &
>> I think salsify has an edible root. Some carrots are white.
>
>But then they would have been translated as such -- that's why the
>cannabis was called 'leaf'.
It isn't cannabis, it's nicotiana.
The root must be starchy, but not one of
>the normal things like Jerusalem artichokes (which are also
>disqualified by being a New World plant.) That's why I chose asphodel.
So asphodel has an edible part, and you're not just being poetic?
>Don't eat the skilla.
What's skilla?
There's always manioc and things like that, but you have to leach
it to remove the toxins. I don't know how long that takes, but
unlikely you'd be able to find it in the wild and eat it the same
day.
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> There's always manioc and things like that, but you have to leach
> it to remove the toxins.
New World.
Alma Hromic Deckert
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <In3M5...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> There's always manioc and things like that, but you have to leach
>> it to remove the toxins.
>
>New World.
This is taking verisimilitude wayyy too far. Taters is obviously
potatoes - comfort food of British Pub variety - bangers and mash and
all that. It's stuff that's iconographic and will be familiar to
readers who might identify with Sam far more than they will EVER
identify directly with Aragorn or Elrond. The fact that potatoes are
"New World" and therefore did not appear in teh Shires of OUR world
until very late is perfectly immaterial - because the Hobbits don't
live in our world, not really. And it's perfectly okay for a fantasy
world to have potatoes in (even if they're just the "comfort food"
equivalents) - even if there WAS no "New World" in that Fantasy realm.
Just my 2 cents, of course.
A.
Julian Flood
"Dorothy J Heydt" wrote
> it's nicotiana.
New World*, so it feels wrong.There's a bit in the first film where
the hobbits walk through a field of maize, which also felt wrong.
Cannabis is eurasian. Probably very mild as it would be recently
brought into cultivation. No wonder the hippies took to the books.
I've wondered, sometimes, what would happen if you ate hop pollen --
the families are very close and it does seem odd that it's added to
beer.
> So asphodel has an edible part, and you're not just being poetic?
Yep -- edible roots
> What's skilla?
It's a plant that I find I've seen lots of times, but never noticed as
a separate species from asphodel. There are two bulby things growing
around the Med that produce spikes of pinkish flowers. One, asphodel,
has edible roots, the other has poisonous roots. One has broader
leaves than the other, but I forget which...
JF
*There was a bit on the northern CENTO route -- the Kurdish bit of
Turkey -- which might do as a location for Mordor.
David Friedman
In case you didn't notice, I was responding to one of several
suggestions for solving the "potatoes are New World" problem by assuming
that Tokien really meant some other edible root. The particular
suggestion, manioc, was also New World.
Kristopher
> This is taking verisimilitude wayyy too far. Taters is
> obviously potatoes - comfort food of British Pub variety
> - bangers and mash and all that. It's stuff that's
> iconographic and will be familiar to readers who might
> identify with Sam far more than they will EVER identify
> directly with Aragorn or Elrond. The fact that potatoes
> are "New World" and therefore did not appear in teh
> Shires of OUR world until very late is perfectly
> immaterial - because the Hobbits don't live in our world,
> not really. And it's perfectly okay for a fantasy world
> to have potatoes in (even if they're just the "comfort
> food" equivalents) - even if there WAS no "New World" in
> that Fantasy realm.
>
> Just my 2 cents, of course.
As a general response to these types of discussions, I have
to agree with Alma.
Taters are potatoes.
--
Kristopher
The question is not "What," or "How," but rather "-Why-?"
R. L.
wrote:
>Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>
>> This is taking verisimilitude wayyy too far. Taters is
>> obviously potatoes - comfort food of British Pub variety
>> - bangers and mash and all that. It's stuff that's
>> iconographic and will be familiar to readers who might
>> identify with Sam far more than they will EVER identify
>> directly with Aragorn or Elrond. The fact that potatoes
>> are "New World" and therefore did not appear in teh
>> Shires of OUR world until very late is perfectly
>> immaterial - because the Hobbits don't live in our world,
>> not really.
Tolkien's did. He said so. So did potatoes. And tobacco (unless it was
cannabis, did he ever say about that?)
>> And it's perfectly okay for a fantasy world
>> to have potatoes in (even if they're just the "comfort
>> food" equivalents) - even if there WAS no "New World" in
>> that Fantasy realm.
>>
>> Just my 2 cents, of course.
>
>As a general response to these types of discussions, I have
>to agree with Alma.
>
>Taters are potatoes.
Let's see. Balrogs, orcs, ok, it's our world and they became extinct
later.
But potatoes couldn't have become extinct in part of our world later?
Maybe the Elves took them all west. The potatoes, I mean.
R.L.
--
RL at houseboatontheganges dot com
for Indian river read styx
David Friedman
R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
> But potatoes couldn't have become extinct in part of our world later?
I think their original origin is fairly well established.
R. L.
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <jrevi1lrbnindofnp...@4ax.com>,
> R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>
>> But potatoes couldn't have become extinct in part of our world later?
I'll try to make that less snippable: In an Our World where balrogs, orcs,
etc once existed, then vanished in all our world (we suppose), why strain
at potatoes vanishing in part of our world?
>I think their original origin is fairly well established.
Meaning we don't find fossil potatoes in the Old World? But have you looked
for fossil potatoes in the fossil stomachs of fossil balrogs?
Or perhaps the fossil potatoes in the New World were put there in 4004 to
deceive us. Which was long after the Elves had left.
R.L.
Hm, an elvish Ark full of balrogs, orcs, and potatoes....
Sea Wasp
> In article <In3M5...@kithrup.com>,
> djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>
>>There's always manioc and things like that, but you have to leach
>>it to remove the toxins.
>
>
> New World.
>
Why does that matter? Tolkien's explicit that taters are, indeed,
potatoes.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
John F. Eldredge
>On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:30:07 -0400, Kristopher <eosl...@net-link.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>>
>>> This is taking verisimilitude wayyy too far. Taters is
>>> obviously potatoes - comfort food of British Pub variety
>>> - bangers and mash and all that. It's stuff that's
>>> iconographic and will be familiar to readers who might
>>> identify with Sam far more than they will EVER identify
>>> directly with Aragorn or Elrond. The fact that potatoes
>>> are "New World" and therefore did not appear in teh
>>> Shires of OUR world until very late is perfectly
>>> immaterial - because the Hobbits don't live in our world,
>>> not really.
>
>Tolkien's did. He said so. So did potatoes. And tobacco (unless it was
>cannabis, did he ever say about that?)
>
He put in a comment in the Appendices about the pipeweed being some
form of _Nicotiana_, which would put it in the tobacco family rather
than hemp family. The deadly nightshade, _Atropa belladonna_, is an
Old-World relative of both the potato and tobacco plants, but it would
make a highly-risky substitute for either one.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
Sea Wasp
> In case you didn't notice, I was responding to one of several
> suggestions for solving the "potatoes are New World" problem by assuming
> that Tokien really meant some other edible root. The particular
> suggestion, manioc, was also New World.
>
I didn't notice that either.
In any case, I don't see the problem; the GEOGRAPHY changed since the
Fourth Age, which means either MAJOR mojo or geologic eras. Either of
these makes the problem of tobacco and potatoes trivial.
Jonathan L Cunningham
>On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 01:08:06 -0700, David Friedman
><dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
>>In article <jrevi1lrbnindofnp...@4ax.com>,
>> R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>>
>>> But potatoes couldn't have become extinct in part of our world later?
>
>I'll try to make that less snippable: In an Our World where balrogs, orcs,
>etc once existed, then vanished in all our world (we suppose), why strain
>at potatoes vanishing in part of our world?
>
>>I think their original origin is fairly well established.
>
>Meaning we don't find fossil potatoes in the Old World? But have you looked
>for fossil potatoes in the fossil stomachs of fossil balrogs?
Seems reasonable to me - taters were a variety of potato grown in
the Shire. They might have been a *different* variety. They became
extinct because hobbits stopped cultivating them. (I don't think Men
necessarily knew about taters - although if taters *did* originate
in the West, perhaps Men brought a few of the original plants for some
reason, which need not necessarily have been edible at that time.
The hobbits *were* good gardeners.)
Isn't there some Egyptian staple which became extinct because the
ancient Egyptians ate it[*]? And some Roman delicacy/spice which
became extinct because it only grew in one area in North Africa,
and they were all harvested and sent to Rome. (Over the course of
many years.)
Jonathan
[*] All of it. But I might be confusing it with some hallucinogen
they liked to eat/drink/smoke or whatever.
--
Mail to spam auto-deleted, use jlc1 instead.
(That's jay ell cee one, if your font makes l and 1 look the same)
Joel Polowin
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 01:08:06 -0700, David Friedman
> <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>>In article <jrevi1lrbnindofnp...@4ax.com>,
>>R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>>>But potatoes couldn't have become extinct in part of our world later?
>
> I'll try to make that less snippable: In an Our World where balrogs, orcs,
> etc once existed, then vanished in all our world (we suppose), why strain
> at potatoes vanishing in part of our world?
A Shirish potato blight would help to explain why hobbits aren't seen
much any more.
--
Joel Polowin jpolow...@sympatico.ca but delete "XYZZy" from address
If the Corps is Mother, and the Corps is Father... you *might* be a redneck.
Julian Flood
"R. L." wrote
> Maybe the Elves took them all west. The potatoes, I mean.
With what motivation? Maybe they planned ahead, intending to come back
with a monopoly on comfort food when the Age of Men began.
<grits teeth, but it is to no avail>
Yes, that could be it.
<sweating now>
After all, there's a man down
our chip shop swears he's elvish.
<explodes>
JF
Bill Swears
Normah Jeanh Mortensenh runs the local pet store. Keeps a three legged
chameleon on display. He's always molting, and nobody will take him
home. By keeping him in a half silvered display case with a light
inside, and feeding the poor devil excessive dietary aluminum, she's got
his camouflage to a shade that closely resembles platinum blond. Says
keeping a male under a spotlight and forcing him to assume unnatural
colors for her delectation brings her karmic peace...
Bill
Dorothy J Heydt
>wrote:
>
>>Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>>
>>> This is taking verisimilitude wayyy too far. Taters is
>>> obviously potatoes - comfort food of British Pub variety
>>> - bangers and mash and all that. It's stuff that's
>>> iconographic and will be familiar to readers who might
>>> identify with Sam far more than they will EVER identify
>>> directly with Aragorn or Elrond. The fact that potatoes
>>> are "New World" and therefore did not appear in teh
>>> Shires of OUR world until very late is perfectly
>>> immaterial - because the Hobbits don't live in our world,
>>> not really.
>
>Tolkien's did. He said so. So did potatoes. And tobacco (unless it was
>cannabis, did he ever say about that?)
No, but he did say it was a species of Nicotiana, but not perhaps
the new world species we're used to.
Dorothy J Heydt
Jonathan L Cunningham <sp...@softluck.plus.com> wrote:
>
>Isn't there some Egyptian staple which became extinct because the
>ancient Egyptians ate it[*]? And some Roman delicacy/spice which
>became extinct because it only grew in one area in North Africa,
>and they were all harvested and sent to Rome. (Over the course of
>many years.)
>
>they liked to eat/drink/smoke or whatever.
I think that's what happened to the shellfish that produced
Tyrian purple. It was scarce to begin with and expensive, and
profit-seeking dyemakers used it to extinction.
Dorothy J Heydt
John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
>On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 07:42:57 GMT, R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>
>>Tolkien's did. He said so. So did potatoes. And tobacco (unless it was
>>cannabis, did he ever say about that?)
>
>He put in a comment in the Appendices about the pipeweed being some
>form of _Nicotiana_, which would put it in the tobacco family rather
>than hemp family. The deadly nightshade, _Atropa belladonna_, is an
>Old-World relative of both the potato and tobacco plants, but it would
>make a highly-risky substitute for either one.
But all the Solanaceae are weird that way. They'll be either
entirely poisonous, or entirely posionous except for one bit --
the tubers of potatoes, the fruit of tomatoes, and there's
something else in the same family that produces an edible berry,
the rest of the plant being poisonous.
Given *only* the information that "taters" are edible
and Sam wishes he had some to put in his stew, if we choose to
assume that they're some Old World member of the Solanaceae we
can go anywhere from there. Maybe "taters" aren't tubers on the
roots, like potatoes; maybe they're starchy little fruits; maybe
they're chunks of pith from the central stem, fergoshsake. All
that's required is that they be an edible segment of a mostly
poisonous plant.
Dorothy J Heydt
Okay; what does he look like? Anything like that red-headed
elvish barmaid you mentioned once?
Julian Flood
"Sea Wasp" < wrote > >>There's always manioc and things like that,
but you have to leach
> >>it to remove the toxins.
> >
> >
> > New World.
> >
>
> Why does that matter? Tolkien's explicit that taters are, indeed,
> potatoes.
I missed that bit, or have forgotten it. Where does he say that?
JF
Alma Hromic Deckert
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
and what I'm saying is that Tolkien didn't CARE about the New World
angle but was using potatoes because that would be familiar comfort
food to those readers who would identify with a character like Sam.
This is not Europe and America, it's MIDDLE EARTH, and if Tolkien
plants potatoes in his Shire and they grow there it's completely
irrelevant where they come from in our sphere of reference.
A.
Julian Flood
"Dorothy J Heydt" wrote
> >After all, there's a man down
> >our chip shop swears he's elvish.
> >
> ><explodes>
> >
>
> Okay; what does he look like? Anything like that red-headed
> elvish barmaid you mentioned once?
Uh huh. Uh huh huh. Yeah, yeah.
JF
fancy your remembering that.
Joann Zimmerman
j...@floodsoopsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk says...
Julian, Julian. That's her *job*.
--
"I never understood people who don't have bookshelves."
--George Plimpton
Joann Zimmerman jz...@bellereti.com
Julian Flood
"Joann Zimmerman" <
> > fancy your remembering that.
>
> Julian, Julian. That's her *job*.
Usenet is terryifying if you think about it. All our stories on file,
all our little tales and jokes. The pressure to be original is
astonishing and relentless.
JF
Or have I said that before?
Bill Swears
upthread. Smeagol and Sam are having the stewed coneys argument, and
Smeagol refuses to look for "roots and carrotses and - taters. What's
taters, precious, eh, what's taters?"
"Po - ta - toes," said Sam. "The Gaffer's delight, and rare good
ballast for an empty belly."
You know, I remember variations of this discussion in High School in the
1970s.
Bill
--
Bill Swears
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Ben Franklin, 1755 "Historical Review of Pennsylvania"
David Friedman
And, as someone already pointed out, Tolkien quite explicitly denies
that--tells the reader that his story is located in our distant past,
and that the Shire is in the Old World.
Which leaves one wondering why he wasn't concerned about the use of
plants that were not present in the Old World in the distant past.
Nicholas Waller
Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
> Given *only* the information that "taters" are edible
> and Sam wishes he had some to put in his stew, if we choose to
> assume that they're some Old World member of the Solanaceae we
> can go anywhere from there. Maybe "taters" aren't tubers on the
> roots, like potatoes; maybe they're starchy little fruits; maybe
> they're chunks of pith from the central stem, fergoshsake. All
> that's required is that they be an edible segment of a mostly
> poisonous plant.
Tolkien does have Sam say what he needs with a coney is "some herbs and
roots, especially taters..." before spelling out po-ta-toes.
Personally, whatever the "place" version of anachronism (anachthonism?)
is, finding potatoes and tobacco in the Shire has never bothered me; I
assume some long and winding road of travel and plate tectonics has led
them there, yeah yeah yeah. But later on the same page of my edition
Sam mentions "fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee", where 'chips'
are chipped potatoes; calling them French Fries would certainly have
thrown us out of Ithilien (and unlikely for Tolkien).
("Fried fish and chips served by S. Gamgee. You couldn't say no to
that!"
"Yess I could! Give me raw fissh now and keep nasssty chips!"
"You know what they have with their chips in Harlond, on the Gulf of
Lhun?"
"No-o-o...o?"
"Mayonnaise!"
"*Yecch*! Nassty hobbit! Not nise hobbit!")
What did bother me a bit was Tolkien's reference at Bilbo's party to a
dragon firework that passed like "an express train". All the other
vivid illustrations of Gandalf's fireworks were in keeping with
Middle-Earth: a phalanx of swans, pillars of coloured fires turning
into eagles, fountains of butterflies, a shower of yellow rain, a
forest of silver spears, hissing like a hundred hot snakes... and then
suddenly there's this thundering steam loco rushing overhead... it's as
out of place as a Wellington bomber.
I can't think of anything else in LotR that stuck out in that way.
--
Nick
nyra
>
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:30:07 -0400, Kristopher <eosl...@net-link.net>
> wrote:
>
> >Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
> >
> >> This is taking verisimilitude wayyy too far. Taters is
> >> obviously potatoes - comfort food of British Pub variety
> >> - bangers and mash and all that. It's stuff that's
> >> iconographic and will be familiar to readers who might
> >> identify with Sam far more than they will EVER identify
> >> directly with Aragorn or Elrond. The fact that potatoes
> >> are "New World" and therefore did not appear in teh
> >> Shires of OUR world until very late is perfectly
> >> immaterial - because the Hobbits don't live in our world,
> >> not really.
>
> Tolkien's did. He said so. So did potatoes. And tobacco (unless it was
> cannabis, did he ever say about that?)
Seeing how Tolkien describes pipeweed as something that can be smoked
in large amounts without being drastically mind-altering and that
no-one remarks on the strangely sour taste of pipeweed smoke and that
no-one seems to use it as a textile fibre (which was the main use of
cannabis/hemp in Europe for centuries, and only the total ban in the
20th century shifted the weighting) ...
--
Een koe is een merkwaardig beest; wat er ook in haar geest moge zijn,
haar laatste woord is altijd boe.
David Friedman
djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
> Given *only* the information that "taters" are edible
> and Sam wishes he had some to put in his stew, if we choose to
> assume that they're some Old World member of the Solanaceae we
> can go anywhere from there. Maybe "taters" aren't tubers on the
> roots, like potatoes; maybe they're starchy little fruits; maybe
> they're chunks of pith from the central stem, fergoshsake. All
> that's required is that they be an edible segment of a mostly
> poisonous plant.
All of which, although entertaining, runs into the question of why they
would be called "potatoes."
David Friedman
R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
> >I think their original origin is fairly well established.
>
> Meaning we don't find fossil potatoes in the Old World?
Meaning that there is evidence of where, and probably even about when
(I'm less sure of that), they originated.
At least he didn't have maize.
nyra
>
> In article <lguvi1935as599se6...@4ax.com>,
> John F. Eldredge <jo...@jfeldredge.com> wrote:
> >On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 07:42:57 GMT, R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
> >
> >>Tolkien's did. He said so. So did potatoes. And tobacco (unless it was
> >>cannabis, did he ever say about that?)
> >
> >He put in a comment in the Appendices about the pipeweed being some
> >form of _Nicotiana_, which would put it in the tobacco family rather
> >than hemp family. The deadly nightshade, _Atropa belladonna_, is an
> >Old-World relative of both the potato and tobacco plants, but it would
> >make a highly-risky substitute for either one.
>
> But all the Solanaceae are weird that way. They'll be either
> entirely poisonous, or entirely posionous except for one bit --
> the tubers of potatoes, the fruit of tomatoes, and there's
> something else in the same family that produces an edible berry,
> the rest of the plant being poisonous.
Other solanaceae with edible fruit are Physalis, Aubergine/eggplant
and Paprika (and the chili varieties, for different values of
'edible'). Don't know whether these plants are otherwise poisonous.
There are some species which are only very mildly poisonous, so much
so that apparently the poisonous fruit of the black nightshade (S.
nigrum) was regularly used for making jam. That was probably a
somewhat domesticated breed, though.
> can go anywhere from there. Maybe "taters" aren't tubers on the
> roots, like potatoes; maybe they're starchy little fruits;
The latter doesn't seem particularly likely: among the good dozen
solanaceae i know, none have starchy fruit.
Brian M. Scott
<test...@aol.com> wrote in
<news:1127234274.9...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>
in rec.arts.sf.composition:
[...]
> Personally, whatever the "place" version of anachronism
> (anachthonism?) is,
Anachorism.
[...]
Brian
Julian Flood
"Bill Swears" wrote
> "Po - ta - toes," said Sam. "The Gaffer's delight, and rare good
> ballast for an empty belly."
I remembered that, but, as you quoted, Sam said that, not JRRT. I
think he was calling 'smeerps' 'sheep'.
JF
R. L.
But how many camels have we already swallowed by that point?
R.L.
--
RL at houseboatontheganges dot com
for Indian river read styx
Alter S. Reiss
Well, not to extinction. But to rarity. There's some evidence to suggest
that it was used to make the Biblical sky blue, so a limited harvest of the
murex has actually been re-initiated in modern times, for Jewish ritual
use.
R. L.
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <3sgvi19rpf1ptgo01...@4ax.com>,
> R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>
>> >I think their original origin is fairly well established.
>>
>> Meaning we don't find fossil potatoes in the Old World?
>
>Meaning that there is evidence of where, and probably even about when
>(I'm less sure of that), they originated.
But where was that continent during the time Tolkien wrote about? :-) He
did say they might have shifted.
>At least he didn't have maize.
Alien corn?
Bill Swears
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 03:30:07 -0400, Kristopher
> <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
>
>
>> Alma Hromic Deckert wrote:
>>
>>
>>> This is taking verisimilitude wayyy too far. Taters is obviously
>>> potatoes - comfort food of British Pub variety - bangers and mash
>>> and all that. It's stuff that's iconographic and will be familiar
>>> to readers who might identify with Sam far more than they will
>>> EVER identify directly with Aragorn or Elrond. The fact that
>>> potatoes are "New World" and therefore did not appear in teh
>>> Shires of OUR world until very late is perfectly immaterial -
>>> because the Hobbits don't live in our world, not really.
>
>
> was cannabis, did he ever say about that?)
>
>
>
>>> (even if they're just the "comfort food" equivalents) - even if
>>> there WAS no "New World" in that Fantasy realm.
>>>
>>> Just my 2 cents, of course.
>>
>> agree with Alma.
>>
>> Taters are potatoes.
>
>
>
> Let's see. Balrogs, orcs, ok, it's our world and they became extinct
> later.
>
> But potatoes couldn't have become extinct in part of our world later?
>
>
>
>
In a little known prequel/sequel action, which JRR forgot to install in
his Appendices, one of Smeagol's fellow river people, Teavol by name,
left the village in search of Deagol, whom everybody initially thought
had just run off...
Roaming Lothlorien while engaged in his search, he met Galadrial, who
was gazing into her mirror, watching a little girl chase a white rabbit
down a hole. She was distracted for a very long time. Impressed by the
artifice, Teavol abandoned the search for his friend Deagol and spent
much of the interval searching out the ways of her art. In the end, he
was only moderately successful, finding that, while he could create
lovely images, they were primarily fictive, and almost never instructive.
Now, Teavol began a search for the way to make galadrial's mirror stand
on end, so it could be watched in greater comfort. After many years of
trial and error he discovered that simple glass, coated on one side with
an opaque silver colored substance, casts an adequate reflection. He
built little bird-baths in their thousands, placed them in boxes with
one side open, put a newly invented mirror at an angle inside the box,
and placed a half-silvered pane of glass over the open side of the box.
When the knock off mirror of Galadrial showed images, they were
reflected in the glass mirror through the halfsilvered glass. This
magic spelled the end of the river people, and later, the Entwives. The
river people bought Teavol's boxes in quantity, often competing to buy
the largest box and mirror. Then they sat on cushioned benches in front
of the boxes until they became - small potatoes.
Many years later, the Entwives came to the river while searching for
better farm-land. The abandoned homes had long since collapsed, leaving
only the enchanted Teavol sets. Wives continued on their way, taking
the Teavol sets as oddities, and samples of this new crop, which
following some dark instinct had long taken to the dark places of the earth.
The Entwives continued their journey, finally settling in the beautiful
farm country that would one day be known as the Shire. Following Entish
tradition, these very entwives began to resemble their favored crop, the
river people, er, potatoes. Later still, the older wives suddenly
recognized that their tribe had become slave to the Teavol, and ran as
best they could to destroy all of Teavol's now ancient knockoff mirror's
of Galadrial. But the damage had already been done, and in time the
Entwives followed their crop into the dark places, becoming large white
potatoes.
At the dawn of the fourth age, the Ents set out to find their beloved
entwives, and as they had suggested they might, visited the shire.
Treebeard recognized his beloved Fimbrethil in the branches of hoary old
potato plant, and tried to bespeak her, but her words were long past,
and she had eyes only for the images the knock off galadrial's water
sent through her roots.
Shortly, the Ents discovered the wicked use the hobbits were making of
their wives, and the offspring of the river people and the Entwives, and
were enraged. Nonetheless, they recognizing that the hobbits could not
have known the evil they committed. Muttering long groaning paen's of
tragedy over the cannibalistic ways of the short-lived, the Ents
gathered up their somnolent wives and departed into the west.
Long ages passed, and the Entwives never again spoke. The Ents
gradually went entirely treeish and were absorbed into the western
forests. The proof that the Ents and Entwives never reunited is that,
in this world, there are no potato trees, only small, low growing plants.
I'm fairly sure the vatican stores the original scrolls of this tale in
amongst the apocrypha.
bill
--
Bill Swears
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Ben Franklin, 1755 "Historical Review of Pennsylvania"
To think that was once a right wing comment. In the land of Homeland
Security it seems.. Suspiciously left-wing.
Julian Flood
"R. L." wrote
> But how many camels have we already swallowed by that point?
Odd, isn't it? I can see a balrog with its open maw shimmering with
heat and flinch back, appalled, fascinated. But show me a misplaced
potato and I flick out of the mindset in a nanosecond.
<grumble grumble) No wonder it's difficult.
JF
Julian Flood
"Bill Swears" wrote
> In a little known prequel/sequel action, which JRR forgot to
install in
> his Appendices, one of Smeagol's fellow river people, Teavol by
name,
> left the village in search of Deagol, whom everybody initially
thought
> had just run off...
[mega snip]
You, Mr Swears, are entirely having too much fun. Go and write a
novel, that'll calm you down*.
JF
*Or serve you right.
Sea Wasp
When he's lecturing Gollum on the subject.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/seawasp/
Sea Wasp
Because he transforms the whole planet, has entire RACES build CITIES
(huge M'Fing cities) which DISAPPEAR, and so on.
Beside the fact that we have never found signs of the ruins of
Rivendell, Moria, Minas Tirith, and not a single bloody fossil orc or
Elf, the fact that he placed tobacco and potatoes in his Middle-Earth
is as trivial as if he had misspelled a couple words. I mean, really,
it was AT LEAST a couple ice ages since Sauron got his ass handed to
him, maybe the ice sheets wiped out the pipeweed and potatoes in the
Old World.
R. L.
<j...@floodsoopsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>"R. L." wrote
>
>> Maybe the Elves took them all west. The potatoes, I mean.
>
>With what motivation?
Did every separate paragraph of my post need a separate sarcasm flag?
As for motivation, well, obviously, to produce an apparent inconsistency to
Test the Faith of the Faithful. (In 4004 BC, I should have said.)
R. L.
<seawasp...@obvioussgeinc.com> wrote:
>David Friedman wrote:
>> In article <s3c0j1hitbp25tcps...@4ax.com>,
/snip/
>> And, as someone already pointed out, Tolkien quite explicitly denies
>> that--tells the reader that his story is located in our distant past,
>> and that the Shire is in the Old World.
>>
>> Which leaves one wondering why he wasn't concerned about the use of
>> plants that were not present in the Old World in the distant past.
>>
>
> Because he transforms the whole planet, has entire RACES build CITIES
>(huge M'Fing cities) which DISAPPEAR, and so on.
>
> Beside the fact that we have never found signs of the ruins of
>Rivendell, Moria, Minas Tirith, and not a single bloody fossil orc or
>Elf, the fact that he placed tobacco and potatoes in his Middle-Earth
>is as trivial as if he had misspelled a couple words. I mean, really,
>it was AT LEAST a couple ice ages since Sauron got his ass handed to
>him, maybe the ice sheets wiped out the pipeweed and potatoes in the
>Old World.
Thanks for good sense. :-)
Also, were the 'New World' and 'Old World' divided the same way then as
now? Were they divided at all? Atlantis was real in [the past of] THAT
HIDEOUS STRENGTH iirc.
Julian Flood
"Sea Wasp" wrote
> Beside the fact that we have never found signs of the ruins of
> Rivendell, Moria, Minas Tirith, and not a single bloody fossil orc
or
> Elf, the fact that he placed tobacco and potatoes in his
Middle-Earth
> is as trivial as if he had misspelled a couple words. I mean,
really,
> it was AT LEAST a couple ice ages since Sauron got his ass handed to
> him, maybe the ice sheets wiped out the pipeweed and potatoes in the
> Old World.
There a paleolithic settlement at Mildenhall which has been excavated.
The ice age inverted it and generally made the excavation difficult,
but they managed to sort it out. Anyway, Tolkien's cast are post iron
age people, so it's not really that long ago. There's lots of room in
prehistory for hobbits.
The point I am sidling up to is, as I mentioned elsewhere, how we can
swallow a balrog and choke on a chip.
JF
Julian Flood
"R. L."
wrote > >> Maybe the Elves took them all west. The potatoes, I mean.
<waves belated 'just making conversation' flag> >With what motivation?
> Did every separate paragraph of my post need a separate sarcasm
flag?
<waves 'being polite under provocation' flag with 'please pay more
attention to general tone' flag hidden in underpants >
Of course they didn't really take potatoes away. But why did something
get called potatoes when they didn't need to be?
<waves 'making things obvious' flag>
When you have people in a strange planet/fantasy world, do you use
routine words or do you prefer to use new, made-up words?
JF
<waves 'trying not to be snotty' flag but with 'quite prepared to wave
sheesh flag' flag in reserve>
(Actually, it was a lead in to a joke. This, as any fule kno, excuses
all things.)
Dorothy J Heydt
And so was Numenor, though Lewis (who may never have seen it
spelled) spelt it Numinor.
As for how the world was set up, it depends. The world used to
be flat and you could, by sailing west, eventually get to Aman.
Of course this would cause Serious Disasters, such as the
drowning of you and your fleet and the destruction of Numenor.
After that, the Valar bent the world and when you sailed west you
would only find America and eventually go around the world and
end up where you began ... unless by grace you could find the
Straight Road.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
sharkey
>
> Seeing how Tolkien describes pipeweed as something that can be smoked
> in large amounts without being drastically mind-altering
"Dude! Talking tree! Whoa!"
-----Merry and Pippin's Excellent Adventure
Suzanne A Blom
Jonathan L Cunningham <sp...@softluck.plus.com> wrote in message
news:432fff3e...@news.plus.net...
> On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 08:19:49 GMT, R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>
> >On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 01:08:06 -0700, David Friedman
> ><dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> >
> >>In article <jrevi1lrbnindofnp...@4ax.com>,
> >> R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
>
> >Meaning we don't find fossil potatoes in the Old World? But have you
looked
> >for fossil potatoes in the fossil stomachs of fossil balrogs?
>
> Seems reasonable to me - taters were a variety of potato grown in
> the Shire. They might have been a *different* variety. They became
> extinct because hobbits stopped cultivating them. (I don't think Men
> necessarily knew about taters - although if taters *did* originate
> in the West, perhaps Men brought a few of the original plants for some
> reason, which need not necessarily have been edible at that time.
> The hobbits *were* good gardeners.)
Well, yes, but the game is: find the root they could have been.
> And some Roman delicacy/spice which
> became extinct because it only grew in one area in North Africa,
> and they were all harvested and sent to Rome. (Over the course of
> many years.)
>
Silp(h)ium, related to asafoetida.
Suzanne A Blom
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote in message
news:ddfr-A3E675.0...@news.isp.giganews.com...
"potatoes" but "taters", which might have been something else altogether.
Dorothy J Heydt
Except that Sam *also* calls them potatoes, and so does Tolkien
in discussing Gaffer Gamgee's skill in the garden, IIRC.
David Friedman
Sam also gives the full name.
David Friedman
"Julian Flood" <j...@floodsoopsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> The point I am sidling up to is, as I mentioned elsewhere, how we can
> swallow a balrog and choke on a chip.
>
Because we know about chips and not about balrogs.
The question actually comes up in the first chapter of my current WI(not
very much)P. Someone repeats a third hand account of a captured
barbarian queen turning into a horse and galloping off with her daughter
on her back. The response, by an elderly philosopher, after a query
about the child's age:
---
Å‚That makes the daughter maybe six months old when she and her mother
escaped?Ë›
Aristos nodded.
Å‚I don't know much about magic, but I know little girls. IÄ…ll believe in
a woman turning into a horse before I believe in a six month old baby
riding a galloping horse bareback.Ë›
---
I should add, since this is rasfc, that the setting is a world without
magic.
Sea Wasp
> Ah, but that's what makes the game interesting. They're not called
> "potatoes" but "taters"
Taters is a contraction of "potatoes", which Sam himself explicitly
states in his conversation about said roots to Gollum.
sharkey
It's short for Smeerp-O-Taters. They've got this thing about the
Easter Smeerp, which goes around the garden hiding Taters.
(for ghu's sake people, it's a *story*!)
-----sharks
Alma Hromic Deckert
Lawksamercy. "taters" is a slang word for potatoes. Sam Gamgee knew
what potatoes were. Not French Fries (sorry - Freedom Fries),
admittedly, but POTATOES nonetheless. The reason Tolkien saw fit to
give hims such knowledge, I guess, is that many of the readers who
would identify with hobbits and the shire had potatoes as their
comfort food and coudl be relied to identify with Sam's cooking
yearnings instantly. It was a little bit of drollery between Sam and
GOllum, intended to show that Real Hobbits Eat Taters and just how far
from a Real Hobbit GOllum had slipped. DOn't try looking for academic
proof that potatoes existed in middle earth, for crying out loud. If
it bothers you THAT much think of them as a metaphor.
There is not question of "what roots they could have been". They were
potatoes, pure and simple. If you can accept the existence of the
Nazgul, accept that.
Move on, Nothing to see here.
A.
Heather Rose Jones
> In article <s3c0j1hitbp25tcps...@4ax.com>,
> Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote:
>
>
>>>In case you didn't notice, I was responding to one of several
>>>suggestions for solving the "potatoes are New World" problem by assuming
>>>that Tokien really meant some other edible root. The particular
>>>suggestion, manioc, was also New World.
>>
>>and what I'm saying is that Tolkien didn't CARE about the New World
>>angle but was using potatoes because that would be familiar comfort
>>food to those readers who would identify with a character like Sam.
>>This is not Europe and America, it's MIDDLE EARTH, and if Tolkien
>>plants potatoes in his Shire and they grow there it's completely
>>irrelevant where they come from in our sphere of reference.
>
>
> And, as someone already pointed out, Tolkien quite explicitly denies
> that--tells the reader that his story is located in our distant past,
> and that the Shire is in the Old World.
>
> Which leaves one wondering why he wasn't concerned about the use of
> plants that were not present in the Old World in the distant past.
>
I've always assumed that the apparently New World plants
were metaphoric substitutions in just the same way that the
name-cultures were explained as. That is, they shouldn't be
read as absolute literal fact in the context of the story,
but as "translating" the literal fact (if one may speak of
such in a fantasy story) in the same way that the
Anglo-Saxon look-and-feel of the Rohirric names "translated"
their true names, and so forth.
Heather
--
Heather Rose Jones
hea...@heatherrosejones.com
<http://heatherrosejones.com>
R. L.
<heathe...@earthlink.net> wrote:
/snip/
>I've always assumed that the apparently New World plants
>were metaphoric substitutions in just the same way that the
>name-cultures were explained as. That is, they shouldn't be
>read as absolute literal fact in the context of the story,
>but as "translating" the literal fact (if one may speak of
>such in a fantasy story) in the same way that the
>Anglo-Saxon look-and-feel of the Rohirric names "translated"
>their true names, and so forth.
Well, maybe it's all in Plato. What the Hobbits had is translated as
'potatoes' because our own New World potatoes are the closest shadowy
imitation of the True Form of Potatoes that we know. Maybe we like our
fish and chips because they sometimes remind us a little of the Real Middle
Earth things.
Catja Pafort
> "R. L." wrote
>
> > Maybe the Elves took them all west. The potatoes, I mean.
>
> With what motivation? Maybe they planned ahead, intending to come back
> with a monopoly on comfort food when the Age of Men began.
>
> <grits teeth, but it is to no avail>
>
> Yes, that could be it.
>
> <sweating now>
>
> After all, there's a man down
> our chip shop swears he's elvish.
>
> <explodes>
<Howl>
This is why I love rasfc.
Catja
Aquarion
> In article <s3c0j1hitbp25tcps...@4ax.com>,
> Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote:
>
>> >In case you didn't notice, I was responding to one of several
>> >suggestions for solving the "potatoes are New World" problem by assuming
>> >that Tokien really meant some other edible root. The particular
>> >suggestion, manioc, was also New World.
>>
>> and what I'm saying is that Tolkien didn't CARE about the New World
>> angle but was using potatoes because that would be familiar comfort
>> food to those readers who would identify with a character like Sam.
>> This is not Europe and America, it's MIDDLE EARTH, and if Tolkien
>> plants potatoes in his Shire and they grow there it's completely
>> irrelevant where they come from in our sphere of reference.
>
> And, as someone already pointed out, Tolkien quite explicitly denies
> that--tells the reader that his story is located in our distant past,
> and that the Shire is in the Old World.
>
> Which leaves one wondering why he wasn't concerned about the use of
> plants that were not present in the Old World in the distant past.
>
Because he cared more about culture than agriculture?
--
Aquarion, www.aquarionics.com (Mail to mailinator.com is publicly displayed)
R. L.
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <dgq3bl$tub$1...@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk>,
> "Julian Flood" <j...@floodsoopsclimbers.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> The point I am sidling up to is, as I mentioned elsewhere, how we can
>> swallow a balrog and choke on a chip.
Well, on the one hand, there's connotation. To me in US, 'fish and chips'
suggests a modern fast food place, like 'hamburger and fries'.
>Because we know about chips and not about balrogs.
Here's a philosophical difference. We know about chips. We don't _know_
about where or when potatoes originated. Some scientists have a theory
about it. Maybe it's a good theory, but it's still a theory. Book-larnin.
(You can't rule out Intelligent Design by Tolkien. :-) It's also balanced
by the theory that the earlier potatoes and their traces might have been
wiped out in the Old World (along with the traces of the balrogs) or the
land referred to might at that time have been connected to the New World or
to some continent that was the real source of potatoes, etc.
GKC had a rather sexist comment somewhere about the old wives' tales vs the
old maid's facts....
Middle Earth is _real_. Tolkien was there. We've been there. Chips are
real. Chips aren't theories. Theories aren't real.
John W. Kennedy
> In article <s3c0j1hitbp25tcps...@4ax.com>,
> Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote:
>
>
>>>In case you didn't notice, I was responding to one of several
>>>suggestions for solving the "potatoes are New World" problem by assuming
>>>that Tokien really meant some other edible root. The particular
>>>suggestion, manioc, was also New World.
>>
>>and what I'm saying is that Tolkien didn't CARE about the New World
>>angle but was using potatoes because that would be familiar comfort
>>food to those readers who would identify with a character like Sam.
>>This is not Europe and America, it's MIDDLE EARTH, and if Tolkien
>>plants potatoes in his Shire and they grow there it's completely
>>irrelevant where they come from in our sphere of reference.
>
>
> And, as someone already pointed out, Tolkien quite explicitly denies
> that--tells the reader that his story is located in our distant past,
> and that the Shire is in the Old World.
>
> Which leaves one wondering why he wasn't concerned about the use of
> plants that were not present in the Old World in the distant past.
Horses. New World. Discuss.
--
John W. Kennedy
Read the remains of Shakespeare's lost play, now annotated!
http://pws.prserv.net/jwkennedy/Double%20Falshood/index.html
David Friedman
"John W. Kennedy" <jwk...@attglobal.net> wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
> > In article <s3c0j1hitbp25tcps...@4ax.com>,
> > Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>In case you didn't notice, I was responding to one of several
> >>>suggestions for solving the "potatoes are New World" problem by assuming
> >>>that Tokien really meant some other edible root. The particular
> >>>suggestion, manioc, was also New World.
> >>
> >>and what I'm saying is that Tolkien didn't CARE about the New World
> >>angle but was using potatoes because that would be familiar comfort
> >>food to those readers who would identify with a character like Sam.
> >>This is not Europe and America, it's MIDDLE EARTH, and if Tolkien
> >>plants potatoes in his Shire and they grow there it's completely
> >>irrelevant where they come from in our sphere of reference.
> >
> >
> > And, as someone already pointed out, Tolkien quite explicitly denies
> > that--tells the reader that his story is located in our distant past,
> > and that the Shire is in the Old World.
> >
> > Which leaves one wondering why he wasn't concerned about the use of
> > plants that were not present in the Old World in the distant past.
>
> Horses. New World. Discuss.
I believe that horses in the narrow sense--the current species--did not
exist in the New World until introduced by the Spanish, although I might
be misremembering. Ancestral species existed but went extinct.
No similar pattern appears to exist for potatoes. Or maize. Or capsicum
peppers. Or... .
David Friedman
R. L. <see...@no-spams.coms> wrote:
> >Because we know about chips and not about balrogs.
>
> Here's a philosophical difference. We know about chips. We don't _know_
> about where or when potatoes originated. Some scientists have a theory
> about it. Maybe it's a good theory, but it's still a theory. Book-larnin.
The same can be said about everything we know. You don't know that
_LOTR_ was written by Tolkien, or even that any such book exists--you
could have imagined it. Those too are theories--just well supported ones.
R. L.
You could have imagined the chips you said we know about. :-)
You could have imagined the books that have the theory about the origin of
potatoes. So that is two levels of theory. :-)
Suzanne A Blom
Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote in message
news:2jk1j1p5iutf5ag7u...@4ax.com...
But it's still a fun game. Of course, I can accept them being a NewWorld
plant, but I was I thought getting into the spirit of the game--Given
European locale & all that, what could it have been? I was not trying to
sound serious. (I'm a writer for pity's sake: If that's not an absurd
proposition, I don't know what is.)
Alma Hromic Deckert
<sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
sowwy <G> blame circumstances, I'm a bit raddled right now (too much
going on...) but a game's a game, and trying to pin down a humble
potato in a work that is otherwise high fantasy felt just a little
like overkill...
A.
Kristopher
David Friedman
"Suzanne A Blom" <sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
> I'm a writer for pity's sake: If that's not an absurd
> proposition, I don't know what is.
Surely there are some propositions more absurd than being a writer.
I'll think of one any day now.
R. L.
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>In article <s3c0j1hitbp25tcps...@4ax.com>,
> Alma Hromic Deckert <ang...@vaxer.net> wrote:
>
>> >In case you didn't notice, I was responding to one of several
>> >suggestions for solving the "potatoes are New World" problem by assuming
>> >that Tokien really meant some other edible root. The particular
>> >suggestion, manioc, was also New World.
>>
>> and what I'm saying is that Tolkien didn't CARE about the New World
>> angle but was using potatoes because that would be familiar comfort
>> food to those readers who would identify with a character like Sam.
>> This is not Europe and America, it's MIDDLE EARTH, and if Tolkien
>> plants potatoes in his Shire and they grow there it's completely
>> irrelevant where they come from in our sphere of reference.
>
>And, as someone already pointed out, Tolkien quite explicitly denies
>that--tells the reader that his story is located in our distant past,
>and that the Shire is in the Old World.
If anyone really needs it, there's another alternative.
1. our world, our timeline
2. some different never never world on a different planet long ago and far
away
3. our world, slightly different timeline
>Which leaves one wondering why he wasn't concerned about the use of
>plants that were not present in the Old World in the distant past.
Maybe because he was more interested in a good story?
Nicholas Waller
Tolkien's desire to build complex interweaving story orcs that came to
a satisfying ent clearly dwarfed any need he felt avoid such
anachorisms; it may have been a lazy hobbit, but all this
world-building wiz'ard (and his elf suffered for it). He was a don of
simple tastes so no doubt he liked to settle down with pipe, ale and
fish and chips - for real, not allegorically - and the grease stains
and/or burn marks got on his manuscript and thus into the story. Man!
--
Nick
R. L.
That makes it sound accidental, careless. I'm more with Alma on this. He
was using a civilization that included potatotes, for good important story
reasons. The geography had to fit round it as best it could.
And there's nothing impossible in land movements and ice ages and such
having wiped out potatoes (and their fossils) for a time in the Old World.
Along witih the fossils of the balrogs....
Joel Polowin
> That makes it sound accidental, careless. I'm more with Alma on this. He
> was using a civilization that included potatotes, for good important story
> reasons. The geography had to fit round it as best it could.
"LotR Appendix F II: On Translation
"In presenting the matter of the Red Book, as a history for people of
today to read, the whole of the linguistic setting has been translated
as far as possible into terms of our own times." And so on. Given
the conceit that Tolkien has translated many of the names and words
into terms that convey, to a modern reader, a meaningful sense, it
seems entirely reasonable to me that Sam's "taters" and "po-ta-toes"
are just referring to some equivalent vegetable commonly eaten by
hobbits.
--
Joel Polowin jpolow...@sympatico.ca but delete "XYZZy" from address
If the Corps is Mother, and the Corps is Father... you *might* be a redneck.
Kristopher
> This is where philosophy takes its hard turn into the absurd.
And evidently, so did Google Groups. Last time I bother
posting from work. Bleah.
--
Kristopher
The question is not "What," or "How," but rather "-Why-?"
Kristopher
>
> R. L. wrote:
>
>>> Because we know about chips and not about balrogs.
>>
>> Here's a philosophical difference. We know about chips. We
>> don't _know_ about where or when potatoes originated. Some
>> scientists have a theory about it. Maybe it's a good theory,
>> but it's still a theory. Book-larnin.
>
> The same can be said about everything we know. You don't know
> that _LOTR_ was written by Tolkien, or even that any such book
> exists--you could have imagined it. Those too are theories--
> just well supported ones.
This is where philosophy takes its hard turn into the absurd.
(Once more, with feeling...)
Jacey Bedford
Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> writes
being found in north America, proving that horses could have evolved
there. (I may have got the spelling a little awry, could be pliohippus
- anyway - it's the dog-sized horse ancestor.)
There's no reason why America should be devoid of horses, there _was_
the land bridge to Asia and Asia was certainly not horseless.
But, yes, horses were reintroduced by the Spanish and the popular theory
is that the local native population - on seeing horses for the first
time - thought that Spaniards on horseback were some strange
god-creature. (Presumably something like centaurs.)
Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
Kevin
I don't think it's overkill at all. In the first edition of _The
Hobbit_, tomatoes were mentioned. Tolkien subsequently removed that
mention, presumably because he didn't like a New World plant showing
up in the Shire.
So why didn't he do likewise with potatoes? Those who suggest
that it is really a translated name for some Old World plant may be
correct. Possibly there was some plant in Middle Earth in those days
that subsequently went extinct, and it was an analogue to potatoes.
That the "taters" can be identified with any extant Old World plant
is, I think, less likely.
But my own personal theory is that the "taters" actually _were_
potatoes. I doubt someone of Tolkien's linguistic sensitivity would
have called them that otherwise. He was more than capable of making
up a new name for them if he wanted.
It is perfectly clear that the New World _did_ exist within the
mythology and that Numenoreans sailed there on occasion. I believe
that the New World is to be identified with the "Lands of the Sun"
that can be seen on one of the maps in HoME IV. The Lands of the Sun
are in basically the right place and have basically the right shape
to be the New World, and they even resemble the New World in having
mountain ranges on their western shores. In the Silmarillion, it
is mentioned that after the Downfall of Numenor some of the Numenoreans
of the Realms in Exile made long sea voyages, including some
circumnavigations, and found various new lands in the process---surely
those new lands would have included the New World.
They would have been perfectly capable of bringing back various
agricultural products, some of which could have found their way among
the hobbits. If the hobbits of the Shire ultimately got their potatoes
from the Dunedain of the North, it makes sense that Smeagol's folk
would never have acquired any, since they lived outside the North-Realm.
Hence it makes sense that Sam was familiar with potatoes while
Gollum was not.
The question would then have to be why potatoes didn't persist.
That gets into the vague questions of what happened after the ages
of the mythology. But loss of potatoes is clearly no more of a stretch
than the great changes in geography. It is fairly clear that Tolkien
envisioned some sort of catastrophe or cataclysm (perhaps identified
with Noah's Flood?) as the border between the era of his mythology
and more historical times. That catastrophe could easily have wiped
out the imported potatoes from the Old World, especially if those
potatoes were never more than a minor specialty crop in most places.
Kevin
David Friedman
Kevin <ktn...@linux12.ph.utexas.edu> wrote:
> The question would then have to be why potatoes didn't persist.
> That gets into the vague questions of what happened after the ages
> of the mythology. But loss of potatoes is clearly no more of a stretch
> than the great changes in geography. It is fairly clear that Tolkien
> envisioned some sort of catastrophe or cataclysm (perhaps identified
> with Noah's Flood?) as the border between the era of his mythology
> and more historical times. That catastrophe could easily have wiped
> out the imported potatoes from the Old World, especially if those
> potatoes were never more than a minor specialty crop in most places.
One problem with that is that potatoes are such a productive crop. When
they were introduced to the Old World, they spread quite
rapidly--although not, I think, as rapidly as maize, which shows up in a
Chinese herbal in the mid sixteenth century. Once they are widely
distributed, it's hard to see what would wipe them out.
A second possible problem has to do with the history of potatoes in the
New World. I don't know enough about it to say whether, like maize, they
were bred into a food crop at some late date--late from Tolkien's
perspective, not ours.
My own guess is that he did intend potatoes, that he either realized
initially that they were New World or it occurred to him later, that he
had no back story in mind to get them to Europe, but that he found them
sufficiently useful for the purposes of the story that he decided to
ignore the problem.
David Friedman
Kristopher <eosl...@net-link.net> wrote:
> David Friedman wrote:
> >
> > R. L. wrote:
> >
> >>> Because we know about chips and not about balrogs.
> >>
> >> Here's a philosophical difference. We know about chips. We
> >> don't _know_ about where or when potatoes originated. Some
> >> scientists have a theory about it. Maybe it's a good theory,
> >> but it's still a theory. Book-larnin.
> >
> > The same can be said about everything we know. You don't know
> > that _LOTR_ was written by Tolkien, or even that any such book
> > exists--you could have imagined it. Those too are theories--
> > just well supported ones.
>
> This is where philosophy takes its hard turn into the absurd.
No. A paragraph earlier.
R. L.
:-) David is defending theories in general. However I maintain that some
theories are more theoretical than others.
Jonathan L Cunningham
<sue...@execpc.com> wrote:
>
>Jonathan L Cunningham <sp...@softluck.plus.com> wrote in message
>news:432fff3e...@news.plus.net...
>> The hobbits *were* good gardeners.)
>
>Well, yes, but the game is: find the root they could have been.
They could have been taters, is my answer :-) -- the supposition
that they were something else, also seems to include the supposition
that the something else is not extinct, otherwise people wouldn't
be suggesting so many vegetables I've never heard of!
>> And some Roman delicacy/spice which
>> became extinct because it only grew in one area in North Africa,
>> and they were all harvested and sent to Rome. (Over the course of
>> many years.)
>>
>Silp(h)ium, related to asafoetida.
That sounds like the name I was trying, and failing, to recall.
Thanks.
Jonathan
Wonders what asafoetida is -- some kind of plant, I expect.
Wonders how to pronounce it <sigh> lucky for me dictionaries
exist -- dictionary says it's related to parsley. I know what
parsley is, which is also lucky, because the dictionary definition
is:
Parsley, n. A member of the parsley family.
--
Mail to spam auto-deleted, use jlc1 instead.
(That's jay ell cee one, if your font makes l and 1 look the same)
Graham Lockwood
(in article <ddfr-DED949.0...@news.isp.giganews.com>):
> In article <dgth3c$i3f$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,
> Kevin <ktn...@linux12.ph.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>> The question would then have to be why potatoes didn't persist.
>> That gets into the vague questions of what happened after the ages
>> of the mythology. But loss of potatoes is clearly no more of a stretch
>> than the great changes in geography. It is fairly clear that Tolkien
>> envisioned some sort of catastrophe or cataclysm (perhaps identified
>> with Noah's Flood?) as the border between the era of his mythology
>> and more historical times. That catastrophe could easily have wiped
>> out the imported potatoes from the Old World, especially if those
>> potatoes were never more than a minor specialty crop in most places.
>
> One problem with that is that potatoes are such a productive crop. When
> they were introduced to the Old World, they spread quite
> rapidly--although not, I think, as rapidly as maize, which shows up in a
> Chinese herbal in the mid sixteenth century. Once they are widely
> distributed, it's hard to see what would wipe them out.
{snip}
Likewise, tobacco is a very addictive crop. When they were introduced to the
Old World, they spread insanely rapidly, at least as rapidly as potatoes or
maize I would say. And yet, in ME they were a minor specialty crop among
hobbits and those who tended to interact with hobbits on a regular basis.
---
Graham
Derek Broughton
> One problem with that is that potatoes are such a productive crop. When
> they were introduced to the Old World, they spread quite
> rapidly--although not, I think, as rapidly as maize, which shows up in a
> Chinese herbal in the mid sixteenth century.
Or Chili peppers, which according (iirc) to an excellent TV program called
"The Spice of Life" were brought to Europe by Columbus after his first
voyage and were already being grown in S. Asia by 1500. I'd love to find a
citable reference for that, though...
--
derek
Chris Dollin
> David Friedman wrote:
>>
>> R. L. wrote:
>>
>>>> Because we know about chips and not about balrogs.
>>>
>>> Here's a philosophical difference. We know about chips. We
>>> don't _know_ about where or when potatoes originated. Some
>>> scientists have a theory about it. Maybe it's a good theory,
>>> but it's still a theory. Book-larnin.
>>
>> The same can be said about everything we know. You don't know
>> that _LOTR_ was written by Tolkien, or even that any such book
>> exists--you could have imagined it. Those too are theories--
>> just well supported ones.
>
> This is where philosophy takes its hard turn into the absurd.
Hardly.
--
Hedgehog
Notmuchhere: http://www.electric-hedgehog.net/
Otherface: Jena RDF/Owl toolkit http://jena.sourceforge.net/
David Friedman
Derek Broughton <ne...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
A quick Google finds no support for that, and I don't believe it--it
looks too fast, given the evidence on the spread of the other New World
crops. Perhaps someone misread "in the 1500's" as "1500?"
David Friedman
sp...@softluck.plus.com (Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
> Wonders what asafoetida
Fetid.
Chris Dollin
> :-) David is defending theories in general. However I maintain that some
> theories are more theoretical than others.
Some are better-tested (and have survived) than others. Some appear
to be wired in to our bodies.
Derek Broughton
No, what was specifically stated was that peppers were being grown in
Indonesia less than 10 years after Columbus first brought them to Spain.
It's not that hard to believe - tobacco, maize and potatoes didn't have to
go so far, they could all be grown in Europe. Peppers can be grown only
around the Mediterranean - so if you were Dutch or English, you'd take them
to your southern plantations.
However, I've done a lot more than a quick google search over about 10 years
and still haven't found anything else to back this statement up.
--
derek
Jette Goldie
<dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> In article <dgth3c$i3f$1...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>,
> Kevin <ktn...@linux12.ph.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
>> The question would then have to be why potatoes didn't persist.
>> That gets into the vague questions of what happened after the ages
>> of the mythology. But loss of potatoes is clearly no more of a stretch
>> than the great changes in geography. It is fairly clear that Tolkien
>> envisioned some sort of catastrophe or cataclysm (perhaps identified
>> with Noah's Flood?) as the border between the era of his mythology
>> and more historical times. That catastrophe could easily have wiped
>> out the imported potatoes from the Old World, especially if those
>> potatoes were never more than a minor specialty crop in most places.
>
> One problem with that is that potatoes are such a productive crop. When
> they were introduced to the Old World, they spread quite
> rapidly--although not, I think, as rapidly as maize, which shows up in a
> Chinese herbal in the mid sixteenth century. Once they are widely
> distributed, it's hard to see what would wipe them out.
>
One decent potato blight, and only one variety of potatoes being grown
should be enough.
--
Jette Goldie
jette....@gmail.com
http://www.jette.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/
http://www.livejournal.com/users/wolfette/