Pasta la Feasta, Baby - Page 6
© Michael Martinez
After a major fire burned large parts of the city, the Romans stopped building apartments with hearths. Dining out became a daily ritual. Intrepid cooks set up shop along the streets, with little fast food restaurants where they would cook meals for passersby. The clientele sat on stools or stood at counters and ate the food prepared right before them. It would have been a very appealing lifestyle to many westerners, although the public toilet facilities seemed to consider modesty unimportant.
Middle-earth's larger cities would have had to sport similar dining arrangements. In fact, the infamous cliched tavern one encounters in numerous fantasy novels is a nod toward the ancient custom. Taverns never quite went out of style because it was just too dangerous to have everyone cooking in their own homes. And, to be honest, how many families could afford to kill a whole cow and save the meat? Taverns and inns which served food along with beer, ale, and wine served a vital economic purpose.
Tolkien acknowleged the vitality of taverns by scattering them around the Shire. Gondor and Rohan most likely had plenty of taverns, too. But taverns served a social purpose beyond simply serving food and drink. They were gathering places for the local communities. Barliman's common hall in the Prancing Pony may in fact have served as the local post office, courthouse, and meeting room for the elders of Bree. But these matters were not important to Frodo's journey.
Armies don't gather at taverns, despite the fact that any role-playing gamer can probably recall having a character saunter into the local tavern and recruit a dozen or so men-at-arms for the task of taking out that dragon down the street. In all probability, though, places like the Prancing Pony were probably the chief source for provisions for travelers.
The business of food production and distribution had to be one of the most profitable in Middle-earth. If all other trades declined, people would still need to eat. Farmers would still need a place to sell or trade their food. Someone would still know of a town just beyond the horizon where families were hungry enough to pay for imports. The Bree-land had only four villages and though there must have been plenty of farms, Bree undoubtedly had to import products from the Shire. Especially salt (unless the Dwarves brought it directly to Bree).
Unfortunately (or fortunately), Frodo's journey after Bree never took him to another inn. He either roughed it in the wild or was treated to dinner by royalty (Elrond in Rivendell, Galadriel and Celeborn in Lothlorien, Aragorn in Minas Tirith). The layover at Henneth Annun was a fluke (though it could be said that Faramir, a prince of Gondor, was extending a similar courtesy to Frodo). Merry and Pippin got to enjoy the spoils of war, feasting on the remains of Saruman's stores. Clearly, it paid to have friends with powerful armies.
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