A meal of ten courses, of course!
How does it work?
Friday May 11 we celebrate 10 years of Green Dragon Friday, the weekly roleplaying event for hobbits on Laurelin. Every year, we draw up a grand meal that the hobbits can order from Barmy at the bar. This year, I figured we’d announce the menu in advance, so yer can find yer favourites before the event. Or order them all, ‘s up to yer!
The menu is usually based on old English food traditions. However, we sometimes do things a little more advanced than you might expect the average hobbit innkeeper to do, also tossing in some ingredients that may be slightly questionable for Tolkien purists. Most of it should be passable, though, and certainly very tasty.
Naturally, we have to be somewhat creative to bring a 10-course special meal into the game. So what we usually do is this:
- I announce the menu for the night.
- The other hobbits start swooning and drooling
- They soon stampede off to line up near Barmy, to “order” their food from him.
- Cue lots of munching, drinking and scraping of plates when they sit by the tables to eat.
The line often gets rather long too, here is an image from a previous anniversary.
The 10th anniversary menu
This year, the theme is “Food from the Shire Villages”. So we offer ten courses from different locations across our lovely homeland, with dishes inspired by the villages they hail from.
Starters
Hobbiton: Mushroom, goat’s cheese and Appledores apple salad, served with buttered fresh-baked bread.
Little Delving: Fried catfish cakes, served on crisp lettuce with a dollop of sour cream mixed with a twist of lemon.
Michel Delving: Thin slices of cured beef, sprinkled with fresh-picked herbs and drizzled with a light mustard sauce.
Mains:
Waymeet: Lemon and thyme butter-basted roast Brownlocke chickens, served with fresh boiled taters, steamed veg and gravy.
Stock: Crisp-fried golden perch, served with stewed dill taters and a wedge of lemon.
Budgeford: Tender slow-roasted pork with apple and lavender sauce, served with crisp crackling and roasted taters.
Brockenborings: Warm mutton and mushroom pies, served with mashed taters and thick gravy made with a healthy splash of apple brandy.
Afters:
Frogmorton: Treacle and ale tart, made with a gentle splash of Toad’s Tongue Ale and served with whipped cream.
Woodhall: Berry trifle; creamy goodness with wild berries from the wood, sponge cake and whipped cream, sprinkled with crushed gingernut biscuits.
Tuckborough: Slices of the Thain’s favourite caraway seed cake, served with a glass of the Thain’s favourite sherry.
Naturally, ales, wines, cider, brandy and tea is served all night. And, obviously, sherry. Enjoy, hobbits! See yer in Bywater on Friday!