Quote:
Originally Posted by zxcvbn
As for Dwarves from the Blue Mountains, I believe they purchased food from the Elves of Lindon or from the Shire(Thorin only regarded Hobbits as 'food growers').
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I think the idea that they purchased all (or even the major deal of) their food is quite impossible. Roughly generalised, to be selfsupporting is the ideal of every great kingdom, and I can see it apply to dwarves much better than any humans or elves.
I wouldn't be surprised if dwarves had some mushroom farms. Easy to grow even inside a mountain and tasty. And surely there are some underground lakes that provide them with fish as well.
However, given the dwarves' physique (really, you can't get those muscles just through genes), I think they must eat some meat as well. Granted, there's protein also in fish, but a fish-mushroom diet would be quite boring. Personally I can see dwarves hunting (with bows, slings or something similar). And what about cattle herds? They can graze on the mountains in the summer and don't need that many people to watch over them anyway. Dried or salted meat doesn't go bad very quickly, and if need be more animals can be slaughtered during the winter.
I'm not sure if they could have any animals inside the mountain, though. Could they stand the lack of daylight (or could the dwarves stand the smell)?
Well, maybe goats, hens or something?
Or now that I think it, even cows. Probably they would enjoy their lives better than animals in factory farms these days, anyway.
edit: crossed with uncle Leggie