Hobbits' Mushroom Obsession Barely Made It Into The Lord Of The Rings Films

There's a classic scene in "The Fellowship of the Ring" movie that references mushrooms, not once but twice. As Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) are exiting the Shire to begin their quest, they're intercepted by Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) carrying a bundle of fresh-picked groceries. It quickly comes out that the two hooligan halflings have been stealing the crops of local farmer Maggot and are being actively chased by the angry agriculturalist and his dog.

The four Hobbits run through a cornfield while Pippin lists the things that he and Merry have stolen in recent weeks. The last item he mentions is mushrooms, just in time for the quartet to tumble down a cliff, nearly into a pile of fresh dung. Merry proudly calls it a "A detour. A shortcut," to which Sam replies, "A shortcut to what?" and Pippin shouts, "Mushrooms!" indicating that he's found some wild-grown fungi.

The Hobbits greedily gather the mushrooms until they're interrupted by an even more famous scene, the arrival of the snuffling Black Rider — who, incidentally, is distracted by the bag of mushrooms that Merry tosses as a decoy. (A devastating loss for a Hobbit, as we'll see in a minute.) It's a fun scene, but it turns out it's only a minor nod to the collective admiration of mushrooms that runs through Hobbit culture. Let's take a closer look at what Tolkien had to say about Hobbits and mushrooms and how he wove them into the earlier chapters of "The Lord of the Rings" multiple times.

To realize the sheer intensity of every Hobbit's love of mushrooms, one need look no further than the title of the fourth chapter of "The Fellowship of the Ring," titled "A Shortcut to Mushrooms." This part of the story explains (in much more detail than Peter Jackson's truncated Shire exit sequence) how Frodo and his Hobbit friends start their journey.

In the chapter Frodo, Sam, and Pippin (Merry and another Hobbit friend named Fredegar have gone on ahead at this point) traipse across the rural countryside. Their goal is to cut off a portion of the journey via a tricky shortcut that, while ineffective, helps them avoid the Ringwraiths that are pursuing them. The shortcut ultimately leads the trio to the farm of a famous resident of the eastern regions of the Shire: Farmer Maggot. Maggot is briefly shown in Jackson's film (he's the guy who is splitting wood at dusk when the Dark Rider comes by asking for Baggins), but he plays a much bigger role in the book. Maggot and his famously protective dogs corner Frodo and company only to discover who they are and ultimately welcome them in for a beer followed by a lavish farmhouse supper.

Throughout the interactions with Farmer Maggot in "The Fellowship of the Ring" book, there are repeated mentions of mushrooms. For starters, it's Frodo, not Merry and Pippin, who has the reputation for stealing Maggot's crops. He confesses this as they approach the farmhouse, saying, "I am terrified of him and his dogs. I have avoided his farm for years and years. He caught me several times trespassing after mushrooms, when I was a youngster at Brandy Hall."

When Farmer Maggot invites them in for dinner, he also references these past exploits, asking Frodo if he still likes mushrooms and adding, "I recollect the time when young Frodo Baggins was one of the worst young rascals of Buckland."

When mealtime comes, the feast is described thusly, "There was beer in plenty, and a mighty dish of mushrooms and bacon, besides much other solid farmhouse fare." When Maggot helps his guests by driving them down to the ferry to cross the river, he gives Frodo a large gift basket from his wife as they part ways. It's content? Yep. It's mushrooms. The last line of the chapter reads: "Suddenly Frodo laughed: from the covered basket he held, the scent of mushrooms was rising."

In the next chapter, when they go to eat the mushrooms, the five Hobbit friends have a fight over who gets to eat them, leading to Tolkien summing up the entire fungal obsession with the line: "Hobbits have a passion for mushrooms, surpassing even the greediest liking of Big People." While mushrooms get a brief mention in Peter Jackson's films, they hardly get their due, considering the fact that they're one of the premier food staples in a Hobbit kitchen.