Middle Earth Ranger Forum

I'm a butcher for a farm to table restaurant as my day job, and my boss and I were nerding out at work and the question came up of what would dwarven cuisine look like?
I'm of the opinion that dwarves would be a huge fan of roasting and braising heartier meats like beef, goat, pork, etc. along with heartier mountain-friendly veg like onions and root vegetables. I also like to think that underground caverns lend themselves perfectly to dry-curing/aging meat and sausages as well as pickling a lot of vegetables.
What do you guys think?

I've always had similar thoughts on their eating habits. The different types of livestock needs, does bring into question what their surface areas: farms/ranches, would look like. I don't picture cattle, chickens, goats, sheep and hogs doing well underground so we have to assume they were kept on the surface before butchering. I can't think they would have traded with humans to procure all their livestock needs.

Peter Remling wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 11:12 am I've always had similar thoughts on their eating habits

Me too, however I also often imagine that they do rely at least in part on farmers who make the mountainsides there home, while the dwarves live beneath the surface and provide a plentiful opportunity for trade

I've always thought the diet would be based on things that do well on hill farms and crofts.

So, mutton (sheep) and chevon (goat) with a little beef (as cattle don't do as well on really poor pasture).
Maybe a few chickens for eggs, but rarely eaten as meat apart from the excess cockerels (this is based on historical practice)
Oats, barley (on dry slopes), rye, rice (on wet slopes) and potatoes. Probably very little or no wheat
Root crops like carrot, parsnip and turnip... Probably lower down where the soil is deeper.
Bush Fruits like raspberry, gooseberry and bramble. Things like apple trees are going to find the strong winds challenging.

In the Holds themselves I see mushrooms, blind fish, forced rhubarb (these still need to have field space 'topside' for part of the cycle) and near light-wells and windows whole Bee Galleries.
I don't see why there wouldn't be Dwarven farmers. Some things would be done differently though, like rather then bringing the livestock down the mountain in bad weather they would be brought inside the mountain.

I love the idea of caves to age cheeses and galleries attached to the ventilation system for the drying of 'Mountain Sausage'

As ForgeCorvus mentioned I think mushroom cultivation would fit really well! There are some great cave photos and mushroom photos here: https://www.loirevalley-france.co.uk/or ... des-roches

Definitely can't go wrong with roasted meats, mushrooms, cheeses, etc. I'm not sure how much would do very well underground from a growing perspective other, than mushrooms, but it'd definitely be very handy for storage. Extensive wine and ale storage anyone?

I've always imagined hidden root vegetable farms where they are harvested from below. Imagine caves that are very close to the surface, perhaps artificially made and propped up with beams. Above the surface, plants appear to grow wild in a forest, but underneath tubers hang from the ceiling. You could walk through, picking potatoes as if they were apples hanging from a tree.

redhandfilms wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:22 pm I've always imagined hidden root vegetable farms where they are harvested from below. Imagine caves that are very close to the surface, perhaps artificially made and propped up with beams. Above the surface, plants appear to grow wild in a forest, but underneath tubers hang from the ceiling. You could walk through, picking potatoes as if they were apples hanging from a tree.

I love this! if I had the space I would try to build it

redhandfilms wrote: ↑Tue Oct 18, 2022 4:22 pm I've always imagined hidden root vegetable farms where they are harvested from below. Imagine caves that are very close to the surface, perhaps artificially made and propped up with beams. Above the surface, plants appear to grow wild in a forest, but underneath tubers hang from the ceiling. You could walk through, picking potatoes as if they were apples hanging from a tree.

That's a great idea. For that matter, each home in a hill could have a garden inside of it. A hobbit may not even have to leaver their home.

On the subject of dwarven beef, I cant help but picture highland cattle as the perfect breed for dwarves to keep. Their long wooly coats and ability to sustain themselves on marginal pasture would make them right at home grazing the sides of whatever mountain the dwarves choose to call home.

There is this from the Silmarillion but of course Mîm and Ibun are petty Dwarves

In the waning of the year Mîm the Dwarf and Ibun his son went out from Bar-en-Danwedh to gather roots in the wild for their winter store; and they were taken captive by Orcs.

For my part I always assumed that the Dwarves left farming to others which they traded for their immense skill at the forge. There are several hints to this across the texts like this one from The Hobbit

Kings used to send for our smiths, and reward even the least skilful most richly. Fathers would beg us to take their sons as apprentices, and pay us handsomely, especially in food-supplies, which we never bothered to grow or find for ourselves.

In the Appendices we have

Thráin said to Thorin Oakenshield: 'Some would think this head dearly bought! At least we have given our kingdom for it. Will you come with me back to the anvil? Or will you beg your bread at proud doors?'

Again, Thorin in The Hobbit - Note that they never sink to farming

After that we went away, and we have had to earn our livings as best we could up and down the lands, often enough sinking as low as blacksmith-work or even coalmining.

Now that is the later Dwarf settlements of course which readily had a large group of humans to hand willing to trade, I have no idea as to the methods that the early Dwarves used in their holds like Khazad-dûm.

As to what sort of food?
Well Thorin and Co. certainly seem to enjoy the contents of Bilbo's larder with beer, wine, ale, porter, tea and coffee to drink. To eat it's a decent list of cakes, scones, pies, apple tarts, raspberry jam, cheese. Finally there is a call for chicken, salad and pickles! Later on they eat rabbit, hare and mutton, dried fruit and nuts along the way and enjoy bread, honey, cream and mead with Beorn.

All this would lead me to conclude that Dwarves have well rounded diet with a fondness for beer, ale and porter - it is only Thorin who partakes of the wine so perhaps a status factor is at play here as in Anglo Saxon culture.
They also seem particularly fond of baked goods as most of the food references are to them (Gimli even praises the Beornings as the best bakers he knows) so perhaps flour is traded and baked in the mountain?
Meat would of course have been eaten at feasts, they cook the mutton and rabbits on spits over an open fire so that's as likely a method as any.

I agree that a lot of the food would be of a kind that could be stored and that cool spaces deep underground for things such as cheeses and hanging hams would seem likely.

Eofor wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 2:12 amFor my part I always assumed that the Dwarves left farming to others which they traded for their immense skill at the forge. There are several hints to this across the texts like this one from The Hobbit

Kings used to send for our smiths, and reward even the least skilful most richly. Fathers would beg us to take their sons as apprentices, and pay us handsomely, especially in food-supplies, which we never bothered to grow or find for ourselves.

In the Appendices we have

Thráin said to Thorin Oakenshield: 'Some would think this head dearly bought! At least we have given our kingdom for it. Will you come with me back to the anvil? Or will you beg your bread at proud doors?'

Again, Thorin in The Hobbit - Note that they never sink to farming

After that we went away, and we have had to earn our livings as best we could up and down the lands, often enough sinking as low as blacksmith-work or even coalmining.

Leave it to Eofor to drop the knowledge bomb with sources. I wouldn't have thought that the Dwarves could sustain themselves entirely by trading with others but there you have it, straight from the Professor. To add to the list of meat, Thorin and Co. try to shoot the white doe in Mirkwood. Special circumstance yes, but deer venison is an easy meal and with the mention of Dwarven archery, I can easily see Dwarven hunting parties sallying from their caves.

Agreed, largely, with what has been said here already. I will say though that the references from The Hobbit are only from the perspective of Thorin himself and his single Dwarven settlement, so they may or may not be indicative of the wider Dwarven cultural attitudes towards hunting, gathering, or farming food.

And… okay, Not to create a whole… THING… about it, but I admit that I was very fond of the concept shown in the Rings of Power show of sunlight being channeled and reflected into the halls of Khazad-dûm for the purposes of growing some food crops WITHIN the mountain. Is it what the Professor himself had in mind? Likely not. Is it a cool concept nonetheless though? I mean, I certainly thought so!

I definitely think the early Dwarves would have had to have been much more self-sufficient, but by the 3rd age we can say with some certainty that at least SOME Dwarven cities obtained all or very nearly all of their food via trade. That does seem like something only a very developed and highly specialized society would do though. I suspect there were plenty of other Dwarven settlements around Middle-earth (including some of the Dwarven diaspora created from the conquer of Khazad-dûm and the Lonely Mountain, respectively) and I would be SHOCKED if none of those communities found ways of creating or procuring their own dedicated food sources.