MUST-301 Lessons

Hello students, and welcome back to Muggle Studies! On your way in, please feel free to pick up some baked sweets I made at home for you all. There are plenty of biscuits, brownies, fruit tarts, and whatever else that will satisfy your sweet tooth! Now, does everyone have themselves a small treat? Good, onwards with the lesson.

I’m sure many of you have had many treats similar to the ones I’ve shared with you today. In fact, I’d daresay many of you grew up eating these types of foods after yummy dinners at home. However, the method used in everyone’s homes most likely varies. If you grew up in a wizarding family, you may have received these treats after they’ve been prepared by magic thus making the time to receive your food much shorter. Or perhaps your family owns a house-elf that makes your food for you, as we do here in Hogwarts.

Both of these methods do involve magic though, something Muggles do not have. So how do they procure food? How do they prepare it without the food-related charms we have at our disposal?

Cooking! Cooking is the act of preparing food with heat. So making some delicious soup on the stove would be considered cooking… and so would baking a cake in the oven. Cooking can be as easy or as difficult as you’d like, which is what makes it such an interesting skill to learn about. As a magic user, you do have spells at your disposal that allows you to prepare food in ways that do not involve much more work than the swish of your wand and the correct incantation. But for Muggles, different devices and techniques are needed in order to achieve the results a witch or wizard would be able to accomplish with magic.

Appliances

Just like with magical people, food is prepared in a kitchen, and then brought out to the table to eat. For Muggles, you might find their kitchen filled with different gadgets to help them make their meals.These are called appliances. I have some such devices on the desk in front of me if you would like to take a closer look.

This contraption is called a mixer, specifically a stand mixer. A mixer is used to, well, mix things. Mixing ingredients is an integral part of making any sort of food dish. Sometimes ingredients come together well enough that you need only use a spoon and a bowl, such as mixing together the elements of a salad. Other times, the ingredients need to be worked very meticulously so you might use your hands, such as kneading bread dough. But for a lot of dishes, the individual components need to be mixed in very quickly, and for a long time. If you’ve ever had a dish with a dollop of whipped cream on top, you may have wondered how the whipped cream is made so it is so fluffy and the light. The reason for this is the cream, when it was in its liquid state, was rapidly mixed which essentially "whipped" the air into the liquid and trapping it inside, creating the whipped cream we know and love today! 

In the past, Muggles could only mix and whip things by hand usually using a tool called a whisk. But, as you might expect, that is a difficult job. Not only would it take a long time for your ingredients to get mixed in the way you’d like, but it was also quite a workout! So, electric contraptions began to be invented that made the job easier. The predecessor to a stand mixer was a manual one, which turned a whisk contraption rapidly to imitate an actual human mixing. However, one still needed to hold the mixer and crank the handle, so it didn’t really save much time.

Which brings us back to the stand mixer! The stand mixer itself is a special type of device that allows the user to mix ingredients without any work on their part, it’s what Muggles might call magic! The cook would put ingredients into the bowl of the mixer, put down the head, then flip the switch to whatever level of mixing they want - the higher the number, the faster the speed. No major arm workout necessary if you need to make whipped cream by hand. Think of it as somewhat like self-stirring cauldrons. But stand mixers can actually run at a much faster speed than these cauldrons do, because spilling food is not nearly as dangerous as spilling an acidic potion!

Now let’s review this strange looking machine. This device is called a microwave oven, often just simply shortened to the microwave. It is a rectangular electronic device that was made to help warm up food in a short amount of time. This is accomplished using microwaves - tiny waves of radiation that cause particles inside of food to heat.

Think of this as a box that will perform a Warming Charm. If your food was cold and you wanted it to be warmed up, a witch or wizard could use the Warming Charm, or perhaps a similar one like the Hot-Air Charm to warm it up. However Muggles would not have those options; instead they would have had to heat up the stove or oven -- two devices that take up a long time to use. It would be like using your cauldron to warm up some food instead of simply using one of the aforementioned charms. You can most likely see the value of having a shortcut device to warm up your dinner!

Let’s go over how to use this microwave box. The large button on the bottom can be pressed to open the door. At this point, any food that should be heated up should go inside, then the door gets shut. Then the user can input how many minutes the food needs to be cooked in the microwave. Most foods need no longer than a few minutes, as the microwave is very efficient at its job.

What kind of foods can go into a microwave, you may wonder? A better question would be what can’t! An important note is that something you can never put into a microwave are items made from metal or certain types of plastic… not unless you’re alright with some melted dishes or a small fire!

Muggles can transform a surprising number of foods into a full meal using the microwave oven. There are many recipes for pasta dishes, for sauces, even desserts! Interestingly, you don’t even need a recipe in order to cook some microwave foods. Basically every Muggle grocery store also sells packaged foods that simply need water (or maybe not even that) and a few minutes in the microwave in order to make a yummy dinner. Of course, if you ever want to make one of those, please make sure to read the instructions on the package carefully -- there’s nothing worse than biting into your freshly microwaved warm chicken nuggets to find one that is still frozen!

The last contraption I’d like to discuss today is the refrigerator, often referred to by its shortened name, the fridge. Its biggest purpose is to keep food cold. It essentially looks like a large wardrobe that is always cold on the inside. As a result, any food that is stored in it will remain cold as well. This is especially helpful if you have foods like eggs or ice cream that need to be kept cold. It’s also great to allow foods to keep for longer -- cooler temperatures make it harder for harmful bacteria to get into your ingredients. This is crucial for Muggles and magical folk alike, as no one wants food poisoning!

This is generally how a fridge works. Behind the large machine is a series of tubes and wires. One tube funnels in a coolant into the contents of the machine. Think of it as a constant stream of a Chilling Charm directed at foods. This is a perfect set-up… imagine being able to reach into the fridge and get a nice cold glass of milk any time you’d like, no magic required!

A quick aside: while we do not have the time to discuss more tools or recipes that Muggles use that you may not have tried before, there have been many scholars that have studied such things previously. If you’re interested in learning more about how Muggles cook, I recommend picking up a copy of Cooking the Muggle Way by our own former Professor Mordicus Egg. It is a great tool to have at your disposal if you’d like to learn how to cook. I encourage anyone that wants to learn how to cook to try cooking in a Muggle way. If you cannot rely on magic when preparing your food, you have to pay more attention. As of which, you begin to pick up on things you may have missed using magical shortcuts. This is a good experiment for everyone to do. Every so often try to accomplish tasks without falling back on tried-and-true magical spells. Sure you do not need to abstain from using magic, but it is a good exercise to teach you how to survive without it. 

Dining Out

In recent years, it has become more common for Muggles to go out of their homes to enjoy food prepared for them, so they do not have to make their meals themselves. This is partially done to enjoy the work of master cooks that produce food masterpieces, and partially due to simply wanting to enjoy a night when less work to make food is needed. There are many different types of restaurants to fill any sort of mood. Witches and wizards own a fair bit of restaurants themselves, many of which I’m sure you’ve been to before. Muggles enjoy the same luxury. 

If you ever find yourself at a Muggle restaurant, you’ll need to know how the process works in order to not stand out so let’s briefly compare and contrast a magical dining experience and a mundane one. While there are a huge variety of Muggle restaurants that each operate slightly differently, they generally all follow the same rule set. First off, you’ll have to be wearing the correct clothing. Unless you know this is a fine dining restaurant, normal clothes you’d wear on an every day basis in the Muggle world would suffice. Then you will enter the restaurant. Sometimes a sign will say ‘Please seat yourself,’ which means you can choose your own table, but the majority of the time there will be a host stand. This is an employee, called a host or hostess, that will greet you and take you to a table. If there is not a table currently available, said employee will take your name, give you an estimate on how long you’ll wait, and will alert you when the table is indeed ready.

Once you are finally at your table, a member of the waitstaff - a waiter or waitress - will come to your table to serve you. They are your point of contact with the kitchen so you can get the food and drink you ordered. The waiter will give you a menu (that is, a list of offerings the kitchen will prepare) and then you can choose which you’d like to have. Prices are also included on the menu. In the magical world this process is usually done with some sort of magical means, or perhaps you can Accio food to yourself -- no employees necessary. Once you’ve communicated what food you’d like, the waitstaff will tell the cooks in the kitchen. The kitchen then makes food - again, without magic, so you’ll have to wait for a period of time - and then the waitstaff brings your desired dish out to you.

After you’ve eaten, you will give your payment to the waiter or waitress (along with a tip if you are in a country that uses them!) and you simply leave your dirty dishes at the table. No magic will take these dishes away like in magical restaurants. Instead it is the job of certain employees to clean up tables for the next guests to use later. 

Even though this system is the basis for the majority of Muggle restaurants, there are exceptions. Some have no wait staff at all and will rely on you getting the food yourself. There are still others where you do not sit in the building at all but instead pick up the food then take it back home to eat there. There are also quite a few in which the cook will prepare the food in front of you, which is a very exciting experience! I’m going to touch on one of my favorites now.

Teppanyaki (sometimes referred to as hibachi but is not technically the same thing) is a style of cooking in which food is prepared on a large griddle surface. It is a Japanese style of cooking that has become more popular in other parts of the world, mainly in the United States. 

It’s an interesting style of cooking because a teppanyaki restaurant is situated thusly: the chef will have a large griddle in front of them where he or she will make the food that the diners have ordered. Patrons of the restaurant are not seated at normal tables, instead they are seated in a U formation where they can all get a good view of the griddle in the middle. If you are part of a small party or if the restaurant is busy, it is very likely you’ll be seated with strangers. The reason for this strange set-up is so all of the diners are able to watch the ‘show’ of the chef preparing the food on the griddle. The show will generally involve jokes, fun arrangements made in the food, and lots of tricks with fire! Since this is such a fun and unique affair, most diners would only go to a restaurant like this on special occasions. At the end of the meal, you’ll have enjoyed a fun show, socialized with your party and new friends from the table, and of course will be full from all of the good food! 

And with that, I’ll conclude our lesson! I hope that you enjoyed learning about some non-magical forms of cooking. For your homework, I have a short quiz for you concerning the material we learned today, as well as a fun assignment involving food. Yum!

Sources:

https://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/kitchenaid-pro-line-stand-mixer-7-quart-copper/

https://www.rsvp-intl.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/BEATR-RD_np1.jpg  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teppanyaki

https://marketresearchbiz-ikwnsbmbizhvmufcjx.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/microwavable-foods-market-400x225.jpg  

https://food.fnr.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2014/10/8/1/KC0313H_Sunnys-microwave-mac-and-cheese_s4x3.jpg.rend.hgtvcom.826.620.suffix/1412797793034.jpeg 

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2018-09/18/10/asset/buzzfeed-prod-web-06/sub-buzz-26594-1537282348-3.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7b/Open_refrigerator_with_food_at_night.jpg/1200px-Open_refrigerator_with_food_at_night.jpg

https://www.britannica.com/story/how-do-microwaves-work 

https://journaltimes.com/business/local/shogun-japanese-steakhouse-sushi-dinner-and-show/article_6872b65a-a1fe-5d9f-8875-707f4088c58d.html