Make me some Lembas Bread

[MiracleOfSound]

'Lembas bread... and What else have we got left? Oh look... more lembas bread!'

 

[JupiterBase]

The biggest problem will likely be balancing shelf life and taste. Most things that will make for a tastier bread are going to make it harder to keep for long period of time. After doing a little research a historical hard tack biscuit was little more then flour and water baked up to 6 times to make it as hard as possible. So replicating something that looks and taste the part will be easy, but combining those elements with something that will last weeks exposed will be tricky.

This is an interesting challenge, i wonder what is possible useing only natural preservatives and cooking methods to help it keep. A lil bit of searching and a few things that might be useful are salt, sugar, vinegar and citric acid. I wonder if there is a leaf that might be useful to help preservation if the lembas is wrapped in it, something waxy.

 

[Daveman]

Rusks, those biscuits babies have. It is Lembas. Fits perfecto. Sweet, crisp(ish), light, tasty and not poisonous. Pretty sure they don't go off quickly either.

Trust me, they just are.

Buy it yourself, what am I? Your wife?

 

[Landslide]

Banana leaves are pretty good wrappers.

 

[Xanadu84]

Ive always thought of it either as shortbread or Baklava. Baklava would probable be a good starting recipe, just make it a little lighter on the sweeteners, and less sticky.

One thing to point out, though, is that really, if Lembas is made to have even a small bit sustain you for a long time, it would have to be chalk full of calories. Lembas is basically the fantasy equivalent of MREs, easy to handle food that sustains you in the field, and MREs do that by being jam packed with calories. Barring the use of magic, Calories are the only way to do that. Proper Lembas bread would have to be very unhealthy in normal circumstances.

 

[gamefreakbsp]

I think Lembas tastes like plain bland bread. Nothing special tasting about it.

 

[geldonyetich]

What you need is some Biscotti made by Keebler.

The first because it's a fair Lembas Bread substitute. The later because that way it's made by elves.

As with cram, Tolkien may have modelled lembas on hardtack. More significantly, commentators have noted that lembas has Eucharistic overtones in accordance with Roman Catholic teachings.[6][7] Lembas literally sustains the hobbits' lives, strength and will, while the Eucharist is the spiritual "Bread of Life". Also, Gollum and other evil creatures cannot abide lembas, while Catholics are instructed not to receive the Eucharist if in the state of mortal sin. Further, the Eucharist is sometimes called viaticum, a Latin term meaning 'for the way,' literally the spiritual food for the Christian's arduous journey through earthly life to heaven. The term viaticum was more commonly heard in Tolkien's day than today. In a private letter, Tolkien acknowledged that lembas bore religious significance.[8] (Source: Wikipedia)

 

[Liam1390]

Sounds like a good challenge, probably unleavened, most likely made with a high gluten flour, how did they get it crisp without making something like hardtack. I'll start with looking through my textbooks.

 

[Versabane]

google "flatbread"/"flatbrød" or "snapbread"/"knekkebrød" or "kavring"

It is light (you can make it high fiber for example)
It is crunchy (as kavring can typhically be made from dried bread (use a warm air oven with an open lid) and the other 2 also are just as dry, basically the durability goes up with dryness)
I myself think its tasty, especially if you put some butter on, maybe some cheese (goat cheese if you want to do it like its founding fathers and mothers)
It is long lasting, is you red my previous statement, durability goes up with dryness because of the decline/stop in bacterial growth.
It is noutrishous in the sense that you can make it contain alot of fiber, can add different kinds of seeds or grounded nuts etc. the nourishment really depends on ingrediences.
For a recipe, try gtranslating some swedish/norwegian or general scandinavian recipes, from what i know, i think the food comes from around these nations, altough got no source to prove this on hand.

Also, you can make it look like lembas bread, the leaf it comes wrapped in however wich was supposed to keep it moist does not make sense, unless it contains a desinfection liquid on microscopic level, but i guess that would violate ur query about poisons etc.

EDIT: once i red my post i kinda make myself come off as an douchebag, with spelling errors. Just wanted to include that my word usage is solely because of english not being a learned language for me, so don't assume my personality traits as a reflection of my post please.