Coming Together by Helenllama

[helenllama.livejournal.com]

Title: Coming togethert

Author Name: Helenllama

Prompt: It's harvest time! Time to reap and thresh and store the grain; to pick the apples and pears; put the root vegetables into cellars and fill the larders with preserves. Create a story or a work of art featuring a Fall seasonal food. Bonus for including a recipe.

Summary: Fall SR 1420. How do the Hobbits manage collecting the “plenty”

Rating: G

Warnings: None

Winterfilth SR 1420

It could be said by May, that something rather miraculous was going on. The weather had been different to the typical shire weather as well, and now the signs of the different weather was showing on the trees. Trees that had not been there in November, were full grown by then. branches filled with flowers and leaves swaying in the spring breeze. By the time harvest came around the flowers had turned into fruit. Row upon row of rich purple plums, green and red apples, pears. A few fruits had fallen already, but there were plenty left on the trees.

In the fields the menfolk toiled, gathering and reaping the grain and pulling up the taters and carrots. In the orchards the menfolk where climbing into the trees, filling huge baskets with fruits – pears, apples, plums. The younger tweens and older teens either helping with the harvest or watching over those too young to help in the fields, sorting the good from the bad. Not that there was much bad food, most of it was perfect.

In the smials and houses the womenfolk rarely left the kitchen, canning fruit and vegetables, sorting those vegetables for storage, and cooking, meals for today, basic stews, and large crumbles filled with the tastiest fruit the shire had ever known, simple fair, quick to make, but satisfying. Large pots of Jams. One or two families had their hobbitesses cooking a meal for all, being given the supplies, and turning them into something tasty

There was no doubt that their was not to be a repeat of the starvation the hobbits had suffered over the last year. Almost all the silos were full or nearly so. The meal in the party field would be a feast, compared to the rations of the previous year, even with the trading that Frodo and Sam had managed to arrange with the elves to allow them to have enough food to last until the Harvest. At least they would be able to repay those – in food – who had enabled them to eat, even if rations were not the best.

Rosie Gamgee, and her mother Lily Cotton, were amongst the hobbits cooking for the others tonight. Many a communal meal were being eaten over the harvest, the idea being to get as much of the fruit, vegetable, and crops in before the rains came.

The large kitchen at the Cotton farm was filled with smells of stews in large pots over the fire. There own harvest was in, and the menfolk where off helping a neighbour with their harvest.  Rosie was busy taking the stones out of the many plums she was making into crumble.

On the other side of the kitchen Mrs Cotton, was peeling, coring, and slicing many apples, and placing them in a large bowl of water, ready to make apple pie and apple crumble. The large batch of crumble mixture was already made together, fine breadcrumbs of butter, flour, and sugar. In another bowl, sat on the window sill, a batch of pastry was resting.

In the oven early batches of crumble, apple and plum, apple and pear, and fruit pies were baking, mixing the aromas of cooking fruit to those of the meat and vegetable filled stews.

Plums sat on a table, a bowl filled to over flowing, their purple skin, contrasting with the pale green pears.

3 hours later

The party field was filled with hobbits, sitting around, eating and talking, the folding tables, weighed down with the pots of stews, and baskets of crusty breads. Large fruit pies, and large trays of crumbles. Jugs of bright yellow custard was positioned around the puddings. A single mallorn, towered, over everyone it's leaves of gold. Yes, maybe things would turn out alright after all.

Recipe for Plum Crumble

Victoria Plums, stoned and halved

250 g flour

160g sugar

150 g butter

Layer the plum in the bottom of an oven proof dish

Add 1-2 tablespoons of water

In a mixing bowl rub together the flour and the butter till it resembles breadcrumbs

Mix in the sugar

Cover the plums with the crumble mix

Bake in the oven at 200 degrees C for 30-40 minutes

Comments

[shirebound]

large crumbles filled with the tastiest fruit the shire had ever known

I'm so hungry now! What a joyous, lovely time for our beloved hobbits.

[with-rainfall.livejournal.com]

This is a very hopeful, optimistic little piece. :) Thanks for this glimpse into the Shire-folk, especially Rosie, enjoying their well-deserved happy ending.

[dreamflower]

*grin* What a perfectly beautiful recipe fic! I absolutely adore the picture of the Shire at harvest time that you create for us--it's so bucolic and merry, I can see it all in my mind's eye.

The recipe sounds yummy as well!

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

This makes me hungry to read. The Hobbits deserve their bounty!

I think you have an extra letter here you might wish to edit "There was no doubt that their was i not to be a repeat"

[binkaslibrary.livejournal.com]

Oh, this was a lovely little fic! Thank you for sharing :D

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I really like that last image.

And hurrah for plum crumble - one of my favourite autumn foods.

[tanis2014.livejournal.com]

Strange - I thought I'd hit the post comment button, but since it's not here, I'm going to assume I didn't. Since I was at work when I read this, it's entirely possible someone came along and I just thought I'd posted the review!

What a great job you've done here, of showing us the hobbits busily harvesting and cooking their bounty. I love that you have them sending food back to those who helped them through the hard times. And I especially enjoyed the *visual* of the Cotton kitchen with all the piles of produce sitting 'round waiting to made into delicious stews and pies and CRUMBLES! Yum! May I have just the topping please!

[hhimring]

Yes, the year of Plenty would create a lot of work, even if it is a blessing, wouldn't it? Nice to see the hobbits working together in this way!
And the crumble sounds delicious!

[You've got a small typo in your first mention of plums ("piums").]

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

Yum! You're doing a fantastic job with evoking that year, and I think you just gave me the impetus I needed to get started on cooking dinner myself, because my mouth is definitely watering just now! :D

[elliska.livejournal.com]

When I read RotK, I can never stand reading the Scouring of the Shire because it's just so cruel (and realistic, I realize) what happened there. So I really love seeing this 'post' view. It is a lovely description of better times that I love to imagine them enjoying. Great story.

[ysilme]

This is certainly the perfect fic to make me so hungry I just wish I had plums now to bake a crumble! *lol* It's lovely to see the recovery of the Shire through the harvest and bounty nature, always indomitable in the end, produces.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

Harvest and a great recipe for Plum Crumble works very well as a symbol of hope and rebuilding in a new age. I hope I remember to check back when plum are in season here. Thanks so much for sharing.

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

Oh, that recipe looks very good! Having grown up on a farm with a small orchard, I could easily relate to the hobbits' harvest in this sweet, hopeful ficlet.

[blslarner.livejournal.com]

How wonderful to be able to fill themselves this harvest, unlike the last one. A wonderful description of the plenty gathered.