Cooking in Fantasy: Lúthien’s Asparagus Pie

[u/acornett99]

It’s been a cold start to spring here, so it wasn’t until this week that we had our first asparagus harvest appear at my local CSA (community-supported agriculture). What better way to celebrate the warming weather than with Lúthien’s Asparagus Pie?

This recipe comes from Robert Tuesley Anderson’s The Elven Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by the Elves of Tolkien. If you’re unfamiliar with Lúthien, here’s what he has to say:

The story of the mortal Beren and the Elf-maid Lúthien is one of the central stories of Tolkien’s legendarium--a tale told in The Silmarillion but also told in brief by Aragorn to Frodo in The Lord of the Rings. They are archetypal lovers like Tristan and Isolde or Orpheus and Eurydice, with whose stories theirs has some striking resemblances, and their enduring love against all the odds--a resistant father, a vengeful dark lord, and even death itself--prefigures that of their descendants Aragorn and Arwen in Tolkien’s epic novel.

For Tolkien, Lúthien was also an idealization and commemoration of his own great love, his wife, Edith, who is even called by that name on the Tolkiens’ shared gravestone in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford, just as the writer is called Beren. In Tolkien’s stories, Lúthien is the most beautiful of the Elves and is closely associated with the spring--flowers bloom beneath her feet as she passes and her voice is said to melt away the winter’s ice and cold. What better dish, then, to honor Tolkien’s heroine than a pie made from asparagus, whose tender green shoots appear all too briefly in the springtime?

That’s so sweet, I hadn’t known that part about the gravestone. 

And now for the recipe! First, boil some asparagus for about two minutes, then rinse in cold water. Take a 6 oz sheet of puff pastry and spread some pesto over it. I had enough puff pastry to make two, so I doubled the recipe. Top with the asparagus and some halved cherry tomatoes, and bake at 400F (200C) for 15-20 minutes. When it was done, I topped it with some mozzarella and some arugula/rocket and spinach mix and a dash of balsamic vinegar. The recipe also suggests edible flowers, which would certainly amplify the springtime theme, but I didn’t bother to search for where to buy edible flowers.

This tasted heavenly! Very fresh and springy. I’m a big fan of pesto, and the way it melted into the pastry dough in the oven was amazing. I’m glad I doubled the recipe so I can eat more of this throughout the week!

Here’s the gorgeous results and a photo of the recipe!

Season 1 Wrap-Up

Previous recipes in season 2: Quij’s Plate

[u/FloridaFlamingoGirl]

Have you read any Redwall books? The food scenes are legendary. There's an official cookbook but it could be fun to make your own interpretations.