Lembas

Lembas, also called Elven bread or Waybread in the Common Speech, was a special travel-food made by the Elves. 
==Description==
The bread was very nutritious, stayed fresh for months when wrapped in mallorn leaves, and was used for sustenance on long journeys. Lembas was light brown on the outside, and the color of cream on the inside. It was made of meal that was baked thin and crisp. Gimli thought it was Cram until he tasted it and found that it was sweet and pleasant, unlike Cram. It is also described as a wafer.The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter IX: "The Great River" Its recipe was a closely guarded secret, and only on rare occasions was it given to non-elves. Like other products of the Elves, it was offensive to creatures corrupted by evil; Gollum refused outright to eat it.The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter I: "The Tower of Cirith Ungol" Although it fed the will, gave strength and endurance, it did not appear to ward off the actual desires of most people, or at least people under incredible strain like Frodo and Sam. For after Sam had eaten it, his mind was still filled with the memories of all other simple foods that he wanted to eat.The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Book Six, Chapter III: "Mount Doom"
Though the grain used to make Lembas is called “corn” it is most likely similar to wheat. In British usage, "corn" was any grain crop; what North Americans call “corn”, British have historically called “maize”.Gibson, L., & Benson, G. (2002). Origin, History, and the Uses of Corn (Zea Mays). Retrieved from http://agron-www.agron.iastate.edu/Courses/agron212/readings/corn_history.htm
In the First Age, lembas was wrapped in "leaves of silver [...] a wafer of white wax shaped as a single flower of Telperion."
==History==
It is said by the Eldar that the art of preparing the lembas came from the Vala Yavanna as far back to the Elves’ Great Journey to Aman, when she brought to them a special corn grown on her fields there. These traditions were passed on throughout the long ages from house to house of the High Elves.The History of Middle-earth, Vol. XII: The Peoples of Middle-earth, chapter XV: "Of Lembas"
Melian, the Queen of Doriath, was the Maia who originally held its recipe. In the First Age, she bequeathed some lembas to Beleg Strongbow for his assistance in seeking and locating Túrin for her and King Thingol.The Children of Húrin, Ch. VI: "Túrin Among the Outlaws", pg. 119 Once Beleriand sank under the Sea and Doriath with it in FA 587, knowledge of the lembas recipe continued with Galadriel, in Lothlórien, and other Elves.
In the late Third Age, Galadriel gave a large store of it to the Fellowship of the Ring upon its departure from Lothlórien. One of the elves commented "[...] we call it lembas or waybread, and it is more strengthening than any food by men, and it is more pleasant than cram, by all accounts."The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Chapter VIII: "Farewell to Lórien" Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee subsisted on it through the majority of their journey from the Anduin River to Mordor.
==Etymology==
Lembas is Sindarin for "Waybread", from the older form lenn-mbass ("journey bread"). In Quenya, it is called Coimas ("life-bread").
==Background==
J.R.R. Tolkien most likely based lembas on bread known as hard tack that was used during long sea voyages and military campaigns as a primary foodstuff. This bread was little more than flour and water, baked hard to endure for many months if kept dry. However, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa wrote in his book Libri tres de occulta philosophia (Book 1, Chapter 13) of an herb from Scythia that allowed people to go for twelve days afterward without any need for food or water. It is also possible that Tolkien based lembas on this description in Agrippa's writings.
It is also possible that Tolkien, a Roman Catholic, modeled Lembas on the Catholic sacramental bread. Like the host in Catholic theology, Lembas appears to be a wafer of bread and cannot be eaten by evil beings. The origin of Lembas bread from the Elves' Great Journey is similar to the origin of the Eucharist from the Manna, which sustained the Israelites during the Exodus, i.e. another "great journey.""The Hidden Manna in the Lord of the Rings," Scott Smith, All Roads Lead to Rome (2017) Additionally, "waybread" resembles Viaticum (literally "traveling provisions"), the Communion given to the dying.
As Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon and English Language and Literature at Oxford University, there may also have a connection to "Lammas Day" (Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, "loaf-mass"), a holiday celebrated in some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere, usually between 1 August and 1 September. It is a festival to mark the annual wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church a loaf made from the new crop, which began to be harvested at "Lammastide", which falls at the halfway point between the summer Solstice and Autumn September Equinox.
The loaf was blessed, and in Anglo-Saxon England it might be employed afterwards to work magic: a book of Anglo-Saxon charms directed that the "lammas bread" be broken into four bits, which were to be placed at the four corners of the barn, to protect the garnered grain.
"Lembas" has found its way into the names of several organizations today, including financial services and foodstuffs.https://lembas.sg/ https://lembascapital.com/strategy/
https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/news/2015/04/16/peter-thiel-has-founded-at-least-five-lord-of-the.html
==In adaptations==
===The Lord of the Rings film trilogy===
In Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, the term "lembas bread" is occasionally used; because the gift of lembas at Lothlórien is not included in the theatrical release of The Fellowship of the Ring, the redundant term "lembas bread" was probably chosen in order to immediately identify the substance to film-goers at the beginning of The Two Towers.
In The Fellowship of the Ring, before departing Lothlórien, Legolas commented to Merry and Pippin that "one small bite is enough to fill the stomach of a grown man." (That was of course a gross exaggeration, as the text is clear that one wafer would feed a man for a day.) Merry and Pippin's appetites as hobbits put the power of lembas to the test. Merry asked Pippin how much he had eaten. Pippin responded, "Four", and then loudly belches.
Later on, when Sam and Frodo were traveling alone, they ate chunks of the bread at a time as their only food source.
===Video games===
*In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (video game), the lembas bread is green on the outside instead of brown (presumably because it is wrapped in Mallorn leaves) and cream colour on the inside.
==Translations==
Foreign Language 	Translated name
Amharic 	ለምባስ
Arabic 	ليمباس
Armenian 	Լեմբաս
Belarusian Cyrillic	Лембас
Bengali 	লেম্বাস
Bulgarian Cyrillic 	Лембас
Chinese (Hong Kong)	蘭巴斯
Georgian 	ლემბასი
Greek 	Λέμπας
Gujarati 	લેંબાસ
Hebrew 	לימבאס
Hindi 	ळेम्बस
Japanese 	レムバス
Kannada 	ಲೆಂಬಾಸ್
Kazakh 	Лембас (Cyrillic) Lembas (Latin)
Korean 	렘바스 빵
Kyrgyz Cyrillic 	Лэмбас
Laotian 	ລເມບະຊ
Macedonian Cyrillic	Лембас
Marathi 	लेम्बास
Mongolian Cyrillic 	Лембас
Nepalese 	ळेम्बस
Pashto 	لېمباس
Persian 	لهمباس
Punjabi 	ਲੇਮ੍ਬਸ
Sanskrit 	ळेम्बस्
Serbian 	Лембас (Cyrillic) Lembas (Latin)
Sinhalese 	ලෙම්බස්
Tajik Cyrillic 	Лембас
Tamil 	லஎம்பஸ்
Telugu 	లేంబాస్
Thai 	เลมบัส
Ukrainian Cyrillic 	лембас
Urdu 	لےمباس
Uzbek 	Лембас (Cyrillic) Lembas (Latin)
Yiddish 	לעמבאַס
==References==
Category:Food and drink
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