Potions Classes

[Eric Oppen]

No: HPFGUIDX 27228

It occurs to me that if I were in Hogwarts, I might actually do fairly well
in Potions.  From what we see, Potions looks a lot like a magical version of
cooking, and I'm a fair-to-middling cook (that is, if I have a recipe to
work from) and, if I say so, a crackerjack home-brewer.

I would like to know how much carry-over there is between Potions and
cooking.  I never had the usual male delusion that cooking was "women's
work;" my mother made sure of _that._  Not only did she point out to me that
the great chefs (at least in China, and France) are men, she also got me
interested by making a rule that only cooks and their assistants got to
snack.  I doubt I'd be interested in snacking in Potions class, but at least
it wouldn't be totally alien to me.  Besides, I'm sure I'd be in Ravenclaw
(too unambitious for Slytherin, too lazy for Hufflepuff, and not
particularly brave, so Gryffindor's right straight out) so at least Snapey
wouldn't be going out of his way to make me nervous, or so I hope.

It wouldn't particularly surprise me to find out, in a future book, that
Professor Snape, in his non-teaching moments, is a Cordon Bleu-level chef in
his own right, and one of his jobs (other than terrorizing Gryffindors and
piling loads of unearned points onto Slytherins) is to supervise the
house-elves so that the food is up to Hogwarts standards.  Wouldn't it be
funny if Hermione, on one of her expeditions into the kitchens to rouse the
house-elves to revolution, found herself hiding in a corner while Professor
Snape told the house-elves just _what_ standards he expected to see from
them?

Comments?  Flames?  Responses?