Pasta la Feasta, Baby - Page 5
© Michael Martinez
Logistics is probably the one aspect of war that Tolkien really didn't deal with adequately. That is, we know that Saruman was importing food from the Shire, and that Henneth Annun was well-stocked with dried fruits and cured meats. But how was Aragorn's army supplied? His 7,000 men would have eaten the equivalent of about 3 pounds of food a day. That's 21,000 pounds of food every day from March 18 through May 1 (roughly speaking -- Aragorn was crowned before the gates of Minas Tirith on May 1).
All Sauron really had to do to defeat Aragorn was to cut his supply lines. Aragorn would have had to retreat or make a mad charge into Mordor, looking for food. Theoden's army of about 6,000 Riders of Rohan could have carried enough food with them to get to Minas Tirith (5-6 days' worth, about 12-18 pounds per Rider), but the horses would have required a tremendous amount of forage.
Of course, Beowulf and Menelaus don't stop in the midst of their epic poems to discuss supply details with their sergeants. They summon their warriors and go, and the audience is expected to understand that the guys had food. Eating is only important to the characters when the story isn't being told. When the poet is singing of raging battles, marching armies, and proud kings and princes, he neglects to point out the mile-long baggage train bringing up the rear.
Middle-earth cuisine probably seems a bit sparse by modern western standards. We can dine out every night at a different style restaurant (finances permitting) in most major cities Italian, French, American, Greek, Chinese, Mexican, and specialty restaurants are very common. Food doesn't have to be fast as long as it's prepared by someone else. In fact, the ancient Romans had a pretty good franchise on restaurants and fast food.
Rome supported a very large population, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Feeding all those people required a lot of resources. But the Romans found early on during the Imperial period that letting everyone have their own kitchen was dangerous. Although the Romans were good at building with stone, the fact is that many of their houses were built on wood frames. All it took to start a major fire was one tilted brazier or one untended hearth. Rome had a very large and semi-professional fire fighting force (which, sadly, became corrupt and not only charged for putting out fires, but also started a few to help keep the money flowing).
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