[Sca-cooks] Lembas recipes, was o happy day!

Sandra Kisner sjk3 at cornell.edu
Sat Jan 6 14:35:30 PST 2007


>If you find a decent recipe for Lembas will you let us know?

A couple recipes were posted to the list in November 2003.  I'll paste them 
in below and hope (if the originators are still on the list) they don't mind.

From: ladyro at comcast.net
To:     <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date:   14 Nov 2003 (Fri) 8:42AM
Subject: [Sca-cooks] Lembas

http://greenbooks.theonering.net/moonletters/recipes/files/r060102_01.html

Lembas
- submitted by Robin C. Poe
What Tolkien says about Lembas
-They contain  honey
-they are light-colored on the inside and light brown crust
-they are thin and regular-shaped. This implies they were made on some kind 
of griddle iron. The closest modern equivalent is a Krumkake iron. I used a 
pizzelle iron

Some other things we can guess.
They contain the fruit and maybe the flower-water of the Mallorn tree. I 
substituted oranges, although kumquats or a hand of Buddha fruit might be 
better.
They probably had some kind of finely ground light-colored nut in them. I 
used almonds.
They contained some kind of nourishing flour. I used semolina flour, which 
is a more primitive flour, and also more nourishing.
Galadriel probably used some kind of grinder to refine the ingredients. I 
used a blender.

The recipe:
3 eggs
1 cup honey (preferably wild honey)
1 tablespoon grated orange peel or three kumquats or one large finger of a 
hand of Buddha.
2 teaspoons orange flower water (optional)
3 oz blanched almonds
1/4 cup melted butter
2-1/4 cups semolina flour
1/2 teaspoon salt

Place eggs, honey, orange peel or other fruit, orange flower water, and 
almonds in blender. Blend on high for 3 minutes. Add 1 cup of the flour. 
Blend for 1 minute. Scrape into a bowl and add remaining flour and salt. 
Whisk or stir until well blended. Bake lembas on a pizzelle or krumkake 
iron 15 seconds each or until lightly brown. You may substitute a waffle 
iron but add a teaspoon of baking powder. The texture will not be quite 
accurate in a waffle iron.

IS,
Ro,
Bright Hills


****

From: alexbclark at pennswoods.net
To:     Cooks within the SCA <sca-cooks at ansteorra.org>
Date:   14 Nov 2003 (Fri) 8:20AM
Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Tokien geekiness

At 09:10 PM 11/13/2003 -0800, Selene Colfox wrote:
 >Lembas, the Elvish waybread, is supposed to be very sustaining but
 >delicious.  Ingredients included nuts and honey but the recipe was a deep
 >secret. . . .

Gollum: What iss it eating, my preciouss?
Sam: Nut'n' honey.

But seriously, as another old Tolkien geek, I don't remember any 
information about the ingredients. Is this something that I've forgotten? 
What I know (from "Farewell to Lorien") is that they were thin, crisp, and 
short, lightly browned on the outside with a creamy color inside, and 
yummy. They also seem to have had the following properties:
   - very high calorie density
   - fairly satisfying for the appetite (though not quite enough for a hobbit)
   - pretty well nutritionally balanced
   - unlikely to get rancid or moldy

This suggests that they should have contained a good deal of fat (for 
calorie density and short texture), and protein and fiber (both for 
nutritional balance and to satisfy the appetite), and very little moisture. 
So whether nuts were mentioned by Tolkien, they could likely have been 
included among the ingredients. High-protein whole grains are likely 
ingredients, while high-protein legumes might also have been included. They 
were probably not heavily sweetened, because sugar or honey would have 
contributed little more than empty calories.

If I were inventing a recipe for lembas, my first test would probably 
involve considerable amounts of whole oat flour and ground lentils, with 
some strong wheat flour and whole barley meal, hazelnut butter, butter, 
eggs, honey, and some mashed fruit, a bit of salt, and a little bit of 
Ceylon cinnamon. Sometime when I have some real spare time I'll have to try 
this. :-)

Alex Clark/Henry of Maldon  




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