Potter Post 2 2/3--FOOD!

With the holiday season right around the corner (what am I saying?  It's already here!) our minds turn to food.  Pumpkin pie, dressing, honey baked ham, candied yams, green bean casserole, and the list goes on.   With thoughts of food filled days also comes the worries of weight gain and cholesterol levels--we can't completely indulge over the holidays for health reasons...but....but...what if we were witches and wizards?

 

This past weekend while standing in line for a haunted house in weather that felt below freezing, Andy and I were discussing how awesome it would be to be able to produce a bluebell flame to keep warm.  (It's a charm that produces a blue flame.  A charm that Hermione uses quite frequently in the books and puts them in jars to keep warm.)  This of course led to more Harry Potter discussion and eventually to food (don't the best conversations always end up being about food?).  But not just any food.  Food in Harry Potter.

There is a lot of food in Harry Potter.  Heavy traditional British food seems to be served at every meal.  It's never ending feast of fried sausages, shepherd's pie, cornish pasties, steak and kidney pudding, black pudding, baked pumpkin, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, mint humbugs, apple pies, treacle tart, eclairs, doughnuts, and the list goes on and on.  And that's on an everyday basis.

As for food served when they are out and about in Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley, or on the train?  Candy, candy, candy, chocolate balls with strawberry mousse and clotted cream, nougats, ice cream, coconut ice, toffee, chocolate everything, pumpkin tarts, butterbeer, soda with flavored syrups and again the list goes on.

Anything strike you as odd?  No? Nothing at all?  How about the lack of fresh fruit, salad, water, pasta salads...or really anything on the lighter side?  Those foods aren't there.  While living with his aunt and uncle, Harry may eat those foods--in fact, in the Goblet of Fire Dudley is on a strict diet and Harry lives off of meals of grapefruit and cottage cheese.  When his magical friends discover this they load him up with mince pies and cake. It seems that the only "healthy" eating that occurs is done by Muggles.  And that is rare, considering the Dursley's do not eat healthy.  Dudley is described as being the size of a small whale.

But you see, that's really interesting.  Dudley really doesn't eat all the differently from the Hogwarts students. Yet he's the size of a baby whale and Ron is described as being tall and lankly.  Something doesn't quite add up.

JKR stated once that witches and wizards generally live longer than muggles.  Well, considering what they eat on a daily basis this seems impossible.  Most likely, witches and wizards do not have the same health concerns as we do.  Something in them prevents them from having cholesterol problems or any other health issues that we have that keeps stuck to drinking water and eating salads.  They also seem to have a sort of immunity against obesity.  Sure Mrs. Weasley is described as being plump but my guess would be that comes from other factors, such as age.  If her weight reflected what she ate, she wouldn't be able to fit in the door.

Just another thing to make you jealous of the witches and wizards--they can eat whatever the heck they feel like eating.  And they do it with style.

Oh yeah.

For a fun essay, read this