Potatoes

[Lindale]

Having read the bit of CoH with Mim and his sack of roots this dinnertime I thought... the roots he was gathering were... potatoes. Any thoughts?

But when they were washed the roots proved to be white and fleshy with their skins, and when boiled were good to eat, somewhat like bread; and the outlaws were glad of them . . . 'Wild Elves know them not; Grey Elves have not found them; the proud ones from over the Sea are too proud to delve . . . . we do not teach Men how to find them, for Men are greedy and thriftless, and would not spare till all the plants had perished.'

But when you boil potatoes, it's not exactly like bread, is it? Unless you overcook it. Boiling is the only way mentioned in CoH of cooking those roots; probably during the zenith of Amon Rudh they had other ways of cooking/preparing it.

This was the First Age; probably during the Third Age, where we have Sam wishing for "good taters" to stick in his stew, potato cultivation has been around for quite a long time.

I've tried Googling "potatoes Mim Turin" and nothing significant I have found.

Oh and forgive this thread that is probably brought about by working in the dead of night with a tummy full of potatoes.

[Aganzir]

Well I don't know. Potatoes aren't the only edible roots there are, and while they certainly were cultivated in the Middle-Earth of the Third Age, I don't how easy it would have been to find wild potatoes so far in the north on the First Age. According to Wikipedia, at least one wild potato species is found as far north as Texas, and I bet the climate of Beleriand was colder than that of Texas.

I'd imagine they were probably more like swedes or turnips (which grow wild also in the north), or just some random roots which have no name (that I'd know of). Also, there are many types of breads, and eg. swedes taste a bit like a certain kind of sweet rye bread, so it's hard to figure how the roots actually tasted. Hunter-gatherers have always fed on roots, and hunting and gathering is mostly the way also Mîm & co got their food, so no wonder if they knew things the elves &c. didn't.

[skip spence]

Why not? Considering how important potatoes became for the peoples of Northern Europe it's entirely possible this is a reference to the 'taters Sam loved so much several millennia later. But well, potatoes are not really white or fleshy I guess, nor do they taste like bread. Hm. Maybe not after all.

[Laurinquë]

I think it rather humorous that Arda has things like "taters", seeing as how they came from the New World, as did Tobacco. LotR, Silmarillion, etc. are supposed to be a sort of pre-history of Europe no? Long before all these New World plants could have gotten there.

Just a comment.

[Lindale]

Originally Posted by Laurinquë

I think it rather humorous that Arda has things like "taters", seeing as how they came from the New World, as did Tobacco. LotR, Silmarillion, etc. are supposed to be a sort of pre-history of Europe no? Long before all these New World plants could have gotten there.

Just a comment.

During the First Age however I am willing to bet they didn't have tobacco or pipe-weed of sorts. The First Age I can most easily equate with Old Europe... with the Third Age as the colonial power Europe. That's how I've read it after taking a post-colonial class. And yes, going back to taters, I think it kinda fits.

[The Might]

Potatoes are in my opinion and good and at least plausible explanation and it would make sense there were taters in Beleriand.

Talking about climate I took a look at this wonderful book that is The Atlas of M-e by Mrs Fonstad and it appears that in her opinion the region where the outlaws lived, as anyways pretty much all of southern and central Beleriand was a region where west winds blew, much like todays Europe and thinks that a type of Gulf current-like oceanic current brought warmth to Beleriand. This results in mild summers and mild winters and in England, North Central Europe and West Oregon (examples given by Mrs Fonstad).

Now, given these circumstances I don't see any problem why the roots could not have been potatoes.