# LOTR fans: Some help with 'The Hobbit', please. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 22, 2004, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-fans-some-help-with-the-hobbit-please/230453 "2004-02-22T02:13:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![The\_Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Griffin)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-fans-some-help-with-the-hobbit-please/230453/21 "2004-02-23T15:46:46Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > There were a few other changes, as well, to bring _The Hobbit_ more into line with his pre-existing _Silmarillion_ timeline. For instance, at the unexpected party, Gandalf originally asked for “cold chicken and tomatoes” rather than the “cold chicken and pickles” in the updated version, the change being made since tomatoes are a new-world food which would not have been known in the pre-Columbian Third Age Europe. So in the film Denethor should not have been eating tomatoes as Faramir and co. went to their doom. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2004, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-fans-some-help-with-the-hobbit-please/230453/22 "2004-02-23T16:17:13Z")
The field of corn (maize) in “The Fellowship of the Ring” probably shouldn’t be there, either. (It seems those wacky Brits have a habit of calling wheat “corn”, leading to much confusion.) But since the Third Age doesn’t correspond to any known period of European history in terms of biology, not to mention anthropology or geography, it doesn’t make that much difference what they grow in their fields. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lotr-fans-some-help-with-the-hobbit-please/230453.md?page=1)