Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Jared’s choice of topic: food in Middle-earth. As Jared says in his introduction, he was reminded of the subject when a semi-viral Tolkien tweet went around again claiming that The Lord of the Rings is in its various parts like the stereotype of recipe blogs: a lengthy and seeming rambling introduction to an eventual meal. But that’s not in fact the case, and the wider question of how food – and appetites and hunger in many different forms – is described by Tolkien in Middle-earth as a whole raises some interesting questions in turn. (We didn’t even talk about Smith of Wootton Major, come to think of it!) Where did the idea the tweet incorrectly claims come from and why do people apply it to Tolkien when it seems much more apt for the works of other writers? How does evil in general intersect with questions of appetite and destruction, and are there differences in how that is applied both in a literal and metaphorical sense? How does hunger play out in Middle-earth and where, and is it more apparent in some works than others? And what would be your preferred meal to join in on if you were given the chance? Also, we have another rather lengthy news section this time out because a certain series is literally about to premiere mere hours from now…