American Readers(and others too)

[Nimrodel_9]

What the dwarves ate would I suppose be equivalent to cup cakes in the US? Like birthday cake, but about small enough to put in your mouth all in one go. (I hasten to add, you would only put them in your mouth in one go if you were trying to snaffle them before your mother catches you stealing from the pantry.)

Me, steal a cupcake before my mother catches me? Never....

Can't say that I thought of it being a whole birthday cake! More of a cupcake. Let us hope so! Ouch! My tummy would hurt if I ate a whole cake! Hmmm... I'll have to add that to my to do list.

[AbercrombieOfRohan]

maybe it was a wedding cake.... (even more enjoyable to think about dwarves carrying around)

[Lalwendë]

I keep laughing thinking of a Dwarf scoffing a huge birthday cake, which is not entirely without the realms of possibility; it certainly wouldn't be for a particularly greedy Hobbit. No, but cake definitely means a sweet, small and very tasty cake indeed. If a little sponge cake, they often go by the name of buns or fairy cakes, and are possibly closest to cup cakes, but they come in infinite varieties; some have cream in them, some custard, some are in fact made with pastry, but to a man (or rather, to a cake) they are all sweet and exceedingly good.

A biscuit is also sweet and incredibly nice, especially the Chocolate Hob Nob. I suppose the closest American equivalent is the Cookie, which in the UK usually describes a type of biscut, usually a very sweet one stuffed with chunks of chocolate and nuts, the kind of biscuits which make people exclaim when you produce them with a pot of tea. Some also like to dunk biscuits in their tea, an odious habit which means you get sludge at the bottom of the cup. Blee. Though I have comitted treason in saying it.

The closest things to American biscuits I suppose might be crackers , which we tend to have with cheese or smoked salmon or other savoury things on top. But if it's something which accompanies a meal then the closest thing might be Yorkshire Pudding, commonly served slathered in gravy with roast beef on Sundays. But this must not be confused with Bakewell Pudding, obtainable fifteen miles from Yorkshire, and which like most things with the word 'pudding' in them is sweet. The only other savoury pudding is Steak & Kidney Pudding.

It is actually quite funny, because I'm sure Tolkien was not playing with his words in this instance and trying to confuse matters linguistically. But by happy accident it does conjour up images of dwarves and Hobbits gorging on vast portions of food. Was anyone in America confused by the idea of eating fish with chips then?

[Rimbaud]

Black pudding, Lal. But that's fairly grim stuff. Just to confuse the issue, Jaffa Cakes resemble UK biscuits, but are probably really cakes. I suggest going to a Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit-down for a full and frank discussion of such matters.

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

Thanks ever so much. Before, I'd pictured Bilbo's cakes as being scones (*drools*)... now they are forever birthday cakes. Actually, besides scones, I also pictured such things as coffee cakes, banana nut bread, and the "lembas" that I found [and subsequently lost] the recipe for one day online. Tasty stuff, if a bit rich and filling. But then that is the point, isn't it... Fea

[Encaitare]

I always thought of them looking like... well, little cakes. Like pieces of cornbread or something, or like the top half of a muffin.

I thought a biscuit in the US was something you poured gravy on

Heh. I was not even aware that we had biscuits. Must go on a biscuit quest now.

[alatar]

Being 'Merican, I was rather disappointed when I found that the 'tea biscuits' that our company president (she's foreign with English roots) purchased for us as gifts were these little crackery-like things. Biscuits, eaten with butter, jelly, honey, gravy or whatever, are like 'buns' and are a bit larger than a computer mouse. Typically these are served warm, and if they are of the right variety, you can make a meal of them (eating two or three).

I never thought that any of the cakes were of the 'birthday' size, except for any cakes eaten at Bilbo's party.

[Lalwendë]

Scones are actually quite dry and dull in comparison to cake in Britain. You often see women turning down a cake dripping in cream and chocolate in favour of a dry, fat free scone. The only time they match up to cake is when they are served up in a Devon Cream Tea; in this treat the scones are slathered in strawberry jam, clotted cream and possibly butter too. Now I can well imagine Hobbits enjoying those. But yes, you can rest assured that when Hobbits serve up cake then they are serving up something truly delicious.

I determined to find out where my idea of American biscuits comes from and it turns out they are a Southern thing. I found this website which has pictures which would repel the most gluttonous Hobbit.

EDIT: And we do have muffins too. They used to be a type of bread roll, the oven-bottom muffin, a traditional Lancashire thing, but the term now refers to rather large individual cakes stuffed with such things as chocolate chips or, my favourite, blueberries and cream cheese.