10 Snack Ideas for Your Next Lord of the Rings Marathon

I am no stranger to the endeavor of a Lord of the Rings movie marathon. Past experience—as well as an awareness that the extended editions have a collective run time of around 12 hours—has resulted in two guidelines that my cohosts and I follow: we encourage everyone on our invite list to come and go as they are available (they are updated with which movie we’re on in group messages), and we make it a potluck. We try to have a couple food and drink items readily available so that we can be sure there was something to offer at any point of the day, and with most invitees bringing something of their own to share, we end up with quite the “hobbit-y” spread!

Now, if you’ve read any of my other articles, you know how much I love themed foods and cookbooks inspired by geeky media. Naturally, I had a lot of fun coming up with ideas for our last marathon party, and I thought I’d share some of them. So, here are 10 foods and drinks fit for a Middle-earth bash—whether you’re celebrating the anniversary of the world movie premiere for The Fellowship of the Ring (December 10), J. R. R. Tolkien Day (January 3), or Hobbit Day (September 22).

I find it helpful to label everything, especially if your group includes folks with allergies or dietary restrictions.

1. Birthday Cake

The Fellowship of the Ring starts with Bilbo’s birthday, so a cake is a natural inclusion. Our most recent marathon took place around my birthday, so my friend made me an absolutely delicious lemon thyme cake that had the perfect hobbit-y aesthetic. We didn’t fuss much over when we served dishes (everything was put out when it arrived), and it happened to be that the cake arrived right at the beginning of the marathon. However, you can bet that I thoroughly enjoyed my 10:00 a.m. slice of cake.

2. Second Breakfast

Second breakfast includes tomatoes, sausages, and nice, crispy bacon. Okay, this is melding two scenes from Fellowship, but it still makes sense. It is important to switch up the types of food available, because otherwise you might make yourself sick eating only cakes and breads. Second breakfast is a good one for getting in some protein to fortify yourself for the next 12 hours of adventuring. Also consider including some vegan options (the Herbivorous Butcher has really good vegan bacon and sausages).

3. Lembas Bread

There are many fan-made lembas bread recipes out there, so you can find one that fits your taste, but I used one from Insanely Good. It’s not super heavy or sweet or dry, but be warned that everyone I know who has made it has needed to add a fair amount more cream than is called for. It does really taste good, though.

4. Veggies and Dip

A couple of friends have veggie gardens, so we had some nice, fresh produce to chop up and nibble on. We also put out a basket of the extra whole vegetables because it added to the visual aesthetic of the food table, which was very hobbit-y, and very the Shire. For dips, I really like hummus with veggies, but you can always go with the Midwest classic: ranch.

5. Ent Draught

This is a nonalcoholic drink from The Geeky Chef Strikes Back by Cassandra Reeder. It has a base of green tea, flavored with lemon, muddled mint, and a touch of maple syrup for sweetness. The recipe in the book is for a single serving, so I scaled it up and slightly tweaked it (I used much less mint than my scaled calculations said) to make a full pitcher. It was pretty pleasant, especially chilled.

Chilled Ent Draught (left) was nice and refreshing, and the lemon thyme cake (right) was delicious. I definitely hoarded the leftovers for myself.

6. Man Flesh

We semirecently got a dehydrator, so we had some homemade fruit leather and jerky that could sit out for the duration of the marathon without issue. We jokingly called this “man flesh” and really leaned into the joke by finding some gummy eyeballs for garnish. You could also do this with a charcuterie board.

7. Seed Cakes

Like the Ent Draught, these came from The Geeky Chef Strikes Back, and the recipe is really easy. The cake is basically a yellow cake mix doctored with a substantial amount of caraway and poppy seeds, and a touch of orange zest. The glaze is a simple combo of butter, powdered sugar, orange juice, and almond or vanilla extract. I topped mine with whole almonds instead of just poppy seeds, because a couple friends are allergic to almonds (and therefor almond extract), and I wanted it to be obvious they should steer clear.

8. Denethor’s Choice

My grape tomato plant went absolutely wild this summer, and I was practically swimming in tomatoes just in time for this marathon. We had a big bowl of them, but most of them were devoured before the infamous Denethor scene. And I’m happy to report that all of my friends had better table manners than the Steward of Gondor.

9. Cheese Board

Cheese is a particularly hobbit-y food, as many of the set dressings of scenes in the Shire include great, big, photogenic wheels of the stuff. It’s also a good party food, so it’s doubly perfect. There are so many different cheeses that you can’t really go wrong, but keep in mind that soft cheeses (such as havarti, brie, and others) can’t be left out for very long, unlike hard cheeses. Serve these with a nice crusty bread, crackers, and sliced apples.

10. Miruvor

This take on the Elvish restorative is an alcoholic drink from another Cassandra Reeder book, The Geeky Chef Drinks. It was a little involved to make, but it was good. It’s a cocktail of white tea, gin, elderflower liquor, orange blossom water, and honey syrup. We had both normal gin and a cherry-blossom gin that a friend brought over, and both were good here. I made this drink in batches of three servings to use up all the tea while it was still hot and freshly steeped (each serving only uses 3 ounces, which is too small a volume to brew individually).

There we go! Ten foods that fit right in to a Lord of the Rings marathon party. If you want to take a closer look at the cookbooks I mentioned, they are all available from the library through the Libby app!

What snacks and libations are your go-to for your own Middle-earth adventures?