1937.
Far earlier than I thought.
A very long time ago, my mentor Phil Sturman sent a snail mail to Tolkien concerning his theory that Bilbo - when, at the end of his long life and knowing that his work was done - the venerable hobbit set sail for the West and ended up in Brandywine, Pennsylvania where they used to grow almost all of America’s canned mushrooms.
Phil argued that - for hobbits - sharing food with one’s fellows was the prime directive... but mushrooms were a more attractive comestible than all other "eats" put together. And so, surely, mushrooms lay at the end of Bilbo’s rainbow.
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