Tag: bombur

Dumpling Stew

morvidra:

(The original recipe was given to Bilbo Baggins by Bombur son of Bomfur. This version has been modified slightly for Shire tastes and ingredients.)

4-6 cloves garlic – halved
1 brown onion – sliced
2 carrots – roughly chopped
2 potatoes – diced
400g mushrooms – sliced
½ cauliflower – chopped
400-500g beef – diced
3 sticks celery – roughly chopped
Small bunch asparagus – sliced in short lengths
A quantity of homemade beef stock – enough to fill one medium casserole dish
3 bay leaves, small bunch sage, 2 sprigs rosemary

For dumplings:
140g wholemeal plain flour
Small bunch parsley, chopped
2 teaspoons baking powder
Salt and black pepper to taste
About 110g cold butter
Cold water

Prepare stew ingredients and layer in slow cooker in order listed from garlic at the bottom to asparagus on top. Pour stock over all and tuck herbs in randomly.
Cook on Low setting for 4-5 hours.

About 1 hour before you want to eat, turn slow cooker up to High.
Make dumplings:
Mix together flour, baking powder, parsley and seasonings.
Chop butter finely and rub into dry mix using fingertips until mixture is crumbly. Then add small amounts of cold water until it forms a sticky dough.
Break dough into about 8 pieces and place these on top of the stew, replacing the lid swiftly.
Leave to cook for 30-40 minutes.
Just before serving, remove dumplings from stew with a slotted spoon and place in serving bowls or a separate bowl.

omg Fili!!!! Ahhh, thank you! I AM SO TRYING THIS, OH I AM GONNA MAKE THIS AS WELL. And it’s such perfect wintery sort of food! Huzzah! ❤

So Gimris was helping deliver one of Bombur’s grand babies a few chapters ago – did Bombur live long enough to meet that little one?

Yes, he did. Geri’s child, Gara, was born later that night after a very tricky labour. The baby was breech, and so there was a lot of touch-and-go. 

Bombur met her briefly, and he held her once. He is very good at holding babies, after all. “Hello, little love,” he said in his soft, shy voice. “I am your grandpa, and I love you already.”

“That’s your nose,” Gimris said, smiling tiredly.

“Nah, it’s hers,” he said, and tapped it with a gentle finger. “That’s her perfect little nose, that is.”

The baby, exhausted after her tricky entry into the world and with the opportunistic ability of all newborns, blinked with her unfocused little eyes, and promptly fell asleep.

chess-ka:

I firmly believe that Bifur is really good with kids, and gets on famously with Bombur’s children. After he was injured, spending time with them was really important to him regaining some equilibrium. The kids in turn think that Uncle Bifur is pretty awesome – he makes them toys, after all. And when he babysits he lets them stay up past bedtime and they get dessert even if they don’t finish their dinner.

The uncles, according to Bombur’s kids:

– Uncle Bifur makes the best toys. Some of them can even move.

– Uncle Bofur tells the best stories – they’re really funny and he does all the voices. Uncle Bifur’s stories are a bit confusing because he forgets where he’s got to.

– Uncle Bofur is the fastest at pony rides, but Uncle Bifur makes the best pony noises.

– They both give good hugs, but they’re not a patch on hugs from Mum or Dad. Obviously.

I’m getting teary imagining the Urs being able to enjoy the everyday benefits of having enough money. Having a big enough house so that everyone has their own space. Barur is pleased that he can get proper food (Fresh ingredients! Enough of everything!). Having clothes that aren’t second hand or having patches on the patches. Being able to afford good schools and apprentices for the kiddos.

EXACTLY.

Alris having to stop herself from doing the constant checks-and-balances of ‘if we have this we can’t have that’. Bombur finally, tentatively experimenting with recipes that don’t stretch to two+ nights. Ingredients that aren’t sold in bulk, that have only the one use. Clothes that aren’t passed down from parent to older siblings to middle siblings to youngest – everyone with new clothes, new boots, all of their own, at last.  Bought especially for them. That fit.

Everyone who wanted a room of their own – has one. Everyone who desperately wished for a hair-clasp like their friend’s, or paper that wasn’t re-used and erased, or a high-quality tool and not a bargain-basement apprentice-effort, has it. 

Baris can finally attend the music schools her epic talent deserves. And she needn’t look like a pauper when she goes. Bofrur can learn from the best dancers, and he can wear the best dancing shoes when he does so. Alfur can get an apprenticeship at the engineering guild – and he won’t have to go down the mines afterwards to pay for it. Alfris has the time and luxury to build her marvellous palaces in her mind, and never want for paper to draw her designs. Bibur can actually become a goldsmith. He knows, now, what gold is like to hold and work with – and he needn’t give it back at the end of the work week. It’s his. 

I just. I have a lot of feelings about poverty, and the Urs. A lot. 

After Erebor is reclaimed, does Gloin spend some of his share of the gold on helping budding inventors/innovators/etc financially? Sort of Dwarven venture capitalism?

Absolutely. I believe they all do, the remaining members of the Company. They would all invest in new prospects such as inventions, schools (guild or otherwise), guilds dear to their hearts (Dori has sunk A LOT into the Weavers and the Scribes, fyi), hospitals and care facilities, etc etc etc. 

The share that each received would have been far less than that originally agreed upon, imo – I’m basing this upon this quote, from Chapter 18, “The Return Journey”:

The others remained with Dain; for Dain dealt his treasure well. There was, of course, no longer any question of dividing the hoard in such shares as had been planned, to Balin and Dwalin, and Dori and Nori and Ori, and Oin and Gloin, and Bifur and Bofur and Bombur—or to Bilbo. Yet a fourteenth share of all the silver and gold, wrought and unwrought, was given up to Bard; for Dain said: “We will honour the agreement of the dead, and he has now the Arkenstone in his keeping.”
Even a fourteenth share was wealth exceedingly great, greater than that of many mortal kings. From that treasure Bard sent much gold to the Master of Lake-town; and he rewarded his followers and friends freely. To the Elvenking he gave the emeralds of Girion, such jewels as he most loved, which Dain had restored to him.
To Bilbo he said: “This treasure is as much yours as it is mine; though old agreements cannot stand, since so many have a claim in its winning and defence. Yet even though you were willing to lay aside all your claim, I should wish that the words of Thorin, of which he repented, should not prove true: that we should give you little. I would reward you most richly of all.”
“Very kind of you,” said Bilbo. “But really it is a relief to me. How on earth should I have got all that treasure home without war and murder all along the way, I don’t know. And I don’t know what I should have done with it when I got home. I am sure it is better in your hands.”

So, Dain spread the treasure a LOT further than fourteen measly shares, as we see. Even so, I am certain that he would have rewarded the Company incredibly richly.

I consider that Dwarves such as Bombur and Bofur (poor as church mice all their lives) would have been initially at something of a loss as to what to do with their newfound wealth. I think that they would have turned to Gloin, as the most financially-savvy Dwarf they know, to help them use it wisely and for the benefit of all.

Gloin would have considered what is important to them, naturally. He himself would already be investing in mines, in apprentice-schools, funding scholarships for Firebeards and war-orphans and speculating in new inventions.

He would have helped them make investments and contributions towards Miner’s Hospitals and ongoing care for those Dwarves who had been permanently affected by war. He would have helped them throw money towards Broadbeam-specific schools, towards toy-making apprentices and journeymen and women, towards the culinary arts.

Basically, I can see Gloin helping his friends invest their wealth wisely, in ways that both increase the health, productivity and happiness of their people, and assure a decent little profit (LITTLE profit – no such thing on such vast numbers, lol – they’re all fabulously wealthy).