#frumenty

I have at least a half-dozen pretty interesting (well, I think they’re interesting, anyway) Words of the Day just waiting to be written, when or if I can muster up the motivation. But I just stumbled across a word I’ve never heard or seen before, and it’s too good to pass up. The Word of the Day is “furmenty.”

Actually, that wasn’t the exact word I came upon. I was reading a description of a “low-class gambling house” in London during the reign of Elizabeth I, known for its “strong ale, furmety, and meat pies.”

“Furmety.” That’s how it was written, with no “n” in the middle. So I looked it up in my big dictionary (I sometimes start there, before going to the interweb.) There was no entry for “furmety,” but there was one for “furmenty.” It said “furmenty” is a British dialect word for “frumenty.” Now we were getting somewhere!

When I looked up “frumenty,” it said that was a British dialect word, too, and it was also spelled “fromenty,” “furmenty,” and – aha! – “furmety.”

So what the heck *is* frumenty/fromenty/furmenty/furmety? Turns out it’s a kind of porridge. There are lots of recipes online if you’re interested, but the basic recipe includes wheat boiled in milk with cinnamon, sugar and maybe some raisins. The key here is the wheat, or other grain, because “frumenty” is derived from the Latin “frumentum,” meaning “grain.”

Now these two instances were a bit directed -to achieve the alignment- but, I swear, those three balls of (yeni)bahar (or however you call it) fell into the bowl all together and without any external force or need for persuasion...

["Home alone" opportunity/day. No need for serious cooking. Just a humble and nutritional bowl of frumenty and let your day moving...]

♂

Amazing Turkish Dolma Turkish dolma

You can make this recipe with large grape leaves, which obviously results in a larger vegetables and frumenty package, making them ideal for a filling lunch or light dinner. Since they are time and labor intensive to make, this recipe is a pretty large quantity. You can store the stuffed grape leaves in the refrigerator for several days, or freeze them for…

In honor of our last cinematic trip to Middle Earth, this week Kitchen Overlord is treating you to one recipe per day from each chapter of An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery. While there’s nothing wrong with some cold chicken and pickles for a quick bite on a busy morning, if you want to impress visiting wizards, warm your belly with this historic morning porridge…