A hobbit pantry (or two) is something to aspire to.

Our favorite parts of J.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (published in 1937) are reading about the food and imagining Bilbo’s hobbit pantry.  We’ve read the book multiple times, and the food and the pantries (because every hobbit has more than one hobbit pantry of course) sound delicious and cozy.  Seed cakes, raspberry jam, apple tarts, mince pies and cheese…

Of course, there’s also a movie and a complete movie set in New Zealand and tours are available.  Until we’re up for the trip to New Zealand, we’ll settle for another reading.

Here are two excerpts from The Hobbit that cover pantries and food, and a link to a recipe for the seed cakes mentioned:

Chapter 1, The Hobbit, An Unexpected Party

…. “It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats–the hobbit was fond of visitors.  The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill–The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage.  The best rooms were on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river”

“…But I don’t mind some cake–seed-cake, if you have any.” “Lots!” Bilbo found himself answering, to his own surprise; and he found himself scuttling off, too, to the cellar to fill a pint beer-mug, and then to a pantry to fetch two beautiful round seed-cakes which he had baked that afternoon for his after-supper morsel.”

“…Now we are all here!” said Gandalf, looking at the row of thirteen hoods–the best detachable party hoods–and his own hat hanging on the pegs. “Quite a merry gathering! I hope there is something left for the late-comers to eat and drink! What’s that? Tea! No thank you! A littler red wine, I think for me.” “And for me,”said Thorin. “And raspberry jam and apple tart,” said Bifur. “And mince-pies and cheese,” said Bofur. “And pork-pie and salad,” said Bombur. “And more cakes–and ale–and coffee, if you don’t mind,” called the other dwarves through the door.

“Put on a few eggs, there’s a good fellow!” Gandalf called after him, as the hobbit stumped off to the pantries. “And just bring out the cold chicken and pickles!” “Seems to know as much about the inside of my larders as I do myself!” thought Mr. Baggins, who was feeling positively flummoxed, and was beginning to wonder whether a most wretched adventure had not come right to his house.”

Chapter 8 Flies and Spiders

“So he sat himself down with his back to a tree, and not for the last time fell to thinking of his far-distant hobbit-hole with its beautiful pantries.”

Have you seen any hobbit pantries?  We’ve linked to a few hobbit or hobbit-ish pantries below: