Des pétates et des tomates

[Druss]

On sait que Tolkien avait supprimé les tomates après la première édition du Hobbit, les remplaçant par des cornichons, mais à ma connaissance, il n'a jamais justifié son geste et encore moins par l'explication du Nouveau Monde, qui ne tient effectivement pas avec les pommes de terre ni l'herbe à pipe. Anderson commente dans le Hobbit annoté (désolé je n'ai pas la VF) :

This revision brings up the question as to why it should matter whether Bilbo’s larder was stocked with tomatoes or pickles. Tom Shippey, in The Road to Middle-earth, suggests that as Tolkien wrote the sequel to The Hobbit, and as he came to perceive the hobbits and their land as characteristically English in nature, he recognized tomatoes as foreign in origin and in name. They were imports from America, like potatoes and tobacco , which were quickly adopted in England. Though Tolkien does use the word tobacco in The Hobbit a handful of times , it is strictly avoided in The Lord of the Rings, where pipeweed is used. There, as well, potatoes are given the more rustic name taters. Tomatoes were thus out of place in the Shire as Tolkien came to perceive it.

Quant à savoir pourquoi ces tomates ont provoqué l'ire du Tolkien Estate, eux seuls le savent...