Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Life Without Potatoes
“What's taters, precious, eh, what's taters?” asks Gollum.
“Po-ta-toes,” explains Sam. “The Gaffer's delight, and rare good ballast for an empty belly.”
(Along with tobacco, apparently—anachronistically—potatoes have somehow managed to make it over to Middle Earth from the Uttermost West. Go figure.)
They're in Ithilien, heading for Mordor along with Frodo and the Ring. Gollum has just snagged a couple of rabbits, which Sam is about to stew up with herbs. Herbs you can find in the wilderness; potatoes, alas, not so. His mention of the toothsome tubers was nostalgia, pure and simple.
(Maybe they'd come over with the men of Westernesse, after the fall of Númenor. After Gollum's time, anyway.)
Poor Gollum. Imagine: life without potatoes.
No wonder he turned out the way he did.
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