I’ve
never reviewed a cookbook before – truth be told, I’ve never owned a cookbook before – but this is a
good one to start with. In addition to
being delightfully nerdy and filled with delicious recipes, it’s a wonderfully
well-put-together volume that shows a lot of love toward its subject.
Written
by Chris-Rachael Oseland, An Unexpected
Cookbook boasts a fine collection of Hobbit-inspired recipes. Ever since getting back into Tolkien last
year, rewatching the movies and then rereading the books, I’ve rekindled my
love for all things Hobbit and have since dipped my toes into the water with
finding Middle-Earthy recipes available online (this site is a favorite source
of mine.) When I saw this lovely-looking
book on Amazon, though, I couldn’t pass it up.
Obviously, the photos on the cover look scrumptious, and beyond that, I
loved that the book divided its recipes according to the seven Hobbit meals –
yes, breakfast and second breakfast are completely-separate categories.
It may
seem odd to say this, but this book is genuinely a nice read. Lots of care has gone into selecting dishes
with the rural Victorian air of the Shire, using only ingredients Tolkien would
have approved of. Each section is
prefaced by a short introduction to that meal – elevenses, dinner, etc. – and
each recipe begins with a short description of the dish, providing a little real-world
historical context or bringing it back to the series. Additionally, the recipes themselves are
written personably, with handy tips for those of us whose adventurousness as
cooks sometimes outweighs our kitchen prowess, as well as a range of other bits
of advice: vegan/gluten-free
modifications, what to pair with a dish, how to use the leftovers, and more.
I’ve unofficially
decided to start a yearly tradition of rewatching the films – over three
consecutive days (I don’t have it in me to do three in one) – and it naturally
follows that I should feast like a Hobbit on said days. I made my first go of it this summer, and it
was really a fun challenge. I selected
one dish for each meal; granted a real Hobbit would probably have several, but
a) they’d already have a decent amount of leftovers in the pantry/larder, so
they wouldn’t be cooking all of it in
one day, and b) I don’t have the stomach of a Hobbit. So, I had one cooking-filled day capped with The Fellowship of the Ring, followed by
two days of leftovers and the subsequent films (with enough food leftover to
have here and there for the rest of the week!)
The
recipes I picked for my maiden voyage, by the way, were as follows:
Breakfast:
Morning Oat Porridge – a whole new oatmeal experience for me
Second Breakfast: Pork Hand Pies – I was really pleased
with how well these turned out
Elevenses:
Honey Cakes
– I had a tricky time getting these out of the muffin pan, but they still
tasted great
Luncheon:
Mushroom Soup
– really flavorful
Afternoon Tea:
Hot Buttered Scones – tasty, buttery goodness
Supper:
Rosemary Skillet Peas – the dish adds some great flavor to what I
tend to think of as a fairly basic vegetable
Dinner:
Wine Braised Oxtails – I had to hunt all over town to find oxtails, but they
were worth the search
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