I didn't have time to do a full-blown essay this month, so here's a bit of meta and a few fic recs...
There's obviously a certain parallel between cooking and Potions; as I have Hermione say in one of my fics ("Phoenix Rising"), "When you think about it...cooking is almost like Potion brewing. You have to add just the right mixture of ingredients--" In reply, Snape snorts derisively. This is because although I think that Snape would probably be good at cooking, I also think that he would regard it as something mundane and trivial in comparison to the subtle art of potion-brewing.
I assume that he probably did have to cook for himself during the few years between his finishing school and being hired as a teacher at Hogwarts. It's kind of hard to picture him living at home with his Muggle father while he's working as a Death Eater, so I assume that he was living on his own during that time, which means that he'd have to do his own cooking unless he ate out every day. But he would regard it as a mundane chore, something done out of necessity and not worthy of the kind of effort that he puts into his potions...or would he?
One could just as easily argue the opposite, that he would carry his Potions skills over into the kitchen, and that since he never does anything by halves, that he would become a gourmet chef if he decided to take up cooking. It could actually become his full-time career if he decides that he wants a change after the war ends, to leave Hogwarts and take up something completely different, as he does in these two Snupin fics:
Title: A New Line of Work
Author:![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
snegurochka_lee
Rating: PG
A wonderfully humorous ficlet where Snape becomes a sushi chef in Japan, putting the same skill and dedication that he did as a Potions Master into his new craft. There's a pun at the end that you won't fully appreciate unless you understand Japanese, so I'll clue you in now that "unagi" means "eel". ;-)
Title: Love Potion Number Eleven
Author:florahart
Rating: NC-17
A hilarious Top Chef parody done Snupin-style, where Snape, Lupin, and several other HP characters are competing in a cooking contest by preparing aphrodisiacs. Snape makes a raspberry-chocolate conconction that is wonderfully subtle and mouth-watering in its description, so I'd advise that you have some chocolates on hand when you read this, because you'll surely be craving some by the time it's over.
While they're humorous fics, it's nice to see Snape content and working in a profession completely unrelated to spying or the war, so I can see how he might want to become a chef.
Still, my own perception of Snape is that he considers cooking to be mundane and not on the same level as potion-brewing--which doesn't necessarily mean that he isn't good at it or doesn't enjoy it. Snape being Snape, he just pretends that he doesn't. ^_^
In my own fic, Chocolate-Covered Werewolf (Snape/Lupin, PG-13), Snape is planning to make some homemade Valentine's chocolates for Lupin, but gets sidetracked when Lupin's own cooking experiment goes awry.
And in The Werewolf Jamboree (Snape/Lupin, PG), Snape enjoys baking but is very embarrassed when Lupin convinces him to enter his Sour Cream Dark Chocolate Cake in a bake-off and it wins first place. Though he does take some satisfaction in beating Molly Weasley!
There's obviously a certain parallel between cooking and Potions; as I have Hermione say in one of my fics ("Phoenix Rising"), "When you think about it...cooking is almost like Potion brewing. You have to add just the right mixture of ingredients--" In reply, Snape snorts derisively. This is because although I think that Snape would probably be good at cooking, I also think that he would regard it as something mundane and trivial in comparison to the subtle art of potion-brewing.
I assume that he probably did have to cook for himself during the few years between his finishing school and being hired as a teacher at Hogwarts. It's kind of hard to picture him living at home with his Muggle father while he's working as a Death Eater, so I assume that he was living on his own during that time, which means that he'd have to do his own cooking unless he ate out every day. But he would regard it as a mundane chore, something done out of necessity and not worthy of the kind of effort that he puts into his potions...or would he?
One could just as easily argue the opposite, that he would carry his Potions skills over into the kitchen, and that since he never does anything by halves, that he would become a gourmet chef if he decided to take up cooking. It could actually become his full-time career if he decides that he wants a change after the war ends, to leave Hogwarts and take up something completely different, as he does in these two Snupin fics:
Title: A New Line of Work
Author:
snegurochka_lee Rating: PG
A wonderfully humorous ficlet where Snape becomes a sushi chef in Japan, putting the same skill and dedication that he did as a Potions Master into his new craft. There's a pun at the end that you won't fully appreciate unless you understand Japanese, so I'll clue you in now that "unagi" means "eel". ;-)
Title: Love Potion Number Eleven
Author:
florahart Rating: NC-17
A hilarious Top Chef parody done Snupin-style, where Snape, Lupin, and several other HP characters are competing in a cooking contest by preparing aphrodisiacs. Snape makes a raspberry-chocolate conconction that is wonderfully subtle and mouth-watering in its description, so I'd advise that you have some chocolates on hand when you read this, because you'll surely be craving some by the time it's over.
While they're humorous fics, it's nice to see Snape content and working in a profession completely unrelated to spying or the war, so I can see how he might want to become a chef.
Still, my own perception of Snape is that he considers cooking to be mundane and not on the same level as potion-brewing--which doesn't necessarily mean that he isn't good at it or doesn't enjoy it. Snape being Snape, he just pretends that he doesn't. ^_^
In my own fic, Chocolate-Covered Werewolf (Snape/Lupin, PG-13), Snape is planning to make some homemade Valentine's chocolates for Lupin, but gets sidetracked when Lupin's own cooking experiment goes awry.
And in The Werewolf Jamboree (Snape/Lupin, PG), Snape enjoys baking but is very embarrassed when Lupin convinces him to enter his Sour Cream Dark Chocolate Cake in a bake-off and it wins first place. Though he does take some satisfaction in beating Molly Weasley!
And of course, there's "Snape, the Home Fries Nazi" in the Snarry category.
Cooking Adventures with Elysia by Elysia_Snape (PG - Snape/OFC)
http://www.mugglenet.com/~fanfiction/vi
And one other (which I cannot find), where Hermione and Severus are in his lab trying to outdo each other by cooking elaborate dishes. Voldemort appears, they cut him up and throw him in a large cauldron. I think they serve the dish to Dumbledore in revenge for him making Severus suffer so much as a spy. I'd be grateful if anyone has a link to this one!
I can see him becoming a more adventurous cook only after the war, when he has had time to relax, amd more probably because he is in a relationship and he has someone he wants to pamper.
So once I've fully woken up, I'm hitting the computer to write the thing (luckily I've got the day off work over here today, I *was* just going to chill, but what's better than diving into a Sev story?) I'll post it once I'm done.
Alison
Theodore Dalrymple in his essay bundle 'Life at the Bottom' tells how he, as a prison doctor, saw numerous undernourished, unhealthily pale inmates come into prison who, after their sentence, left again having gained a fair amount of weight, health and a new experience: sitting at a table, sharing a meal. When he asked these inmates about their past, they were all chucked out of their home by mum (or mum's new boyfriend) when they were 12 or so, and had since that time lived on crisps and bars of chocolate.
Severus was neglected as a child. I doubt his mother or father cooked much, and even if they did, I doubt that young Sev would've spent much time at home if he could avoid it.
Then he goes to Hogwarts, where he eats at a table (will wonders ever cease!) but where the Elves magic the food on the table. No connection with actually *cooking* food.
Then, as an adult, he gets severely and clinically depressed and looses all interest in food (and eating, sleeping and surviving)
So, in short, I doubt Snape can or wants to cook.
Young Snape doesn't seem to have had any friends apart from Lily in canon, so perhaps he spent a lot of time indors, with his mother, learning about magic, and probably, cooking as well.
Alison
I think that anything he ate at the Evans house might have seemed like the most wonderful meal in the world - what with two loving parents presiding over it. But I doubt he learned to cook until he was on his own post-Hogwarts.
I think he first approach would have been a simple cookbook. It has recipes that can be followed and so he should show competency rather quickly and then move to experimenting. Altho' I agree that once Lily died he was probably too depressed to continue. But for those few years between, I think he might have learned. He might have found it 'soothing' like he seems to feel with brewing.
Then there is also the point of changes in his 'persona' between SWM and the 'billowy' confident Snape we see as an adult. He may be from the wrong side of town, but he usually speaks with a very nice accent and without a particularly 'northern' one. I think he did a fair amount of 'polishing' of himself to 'fit-in' better with the 'purebloods' - and let's face it, Narcissa knew exactly where his house was in that maze of roads. I cannot see him throwing dinner parties, but perhaps having someone over for tea which would require some baking?
And I agree that his 'healing' background would push him to go for the most nutrition per meal.
You know, there's a wonderful scene in a hurt/comfort fanfic called "The Birthday Present" by ExcessivelyPerky where Snape goes to a dinner party at the Malfoys, hosted by Voldy right after the fight in the Dept of Mysteries.
The party turns out to be in his honor and while everyone else is having wonderfully exquiste french dinners - his was something like Steak and Kidney pie, because Narcissa knew he would prefer it and so that's what he got since he was the one being honored. And Peter Pettigrew remarks later that he wished he could have had the more homey fare.
Warning: if you decide to read the story, mentions of sexual abuse on a child (Snape) and and use of sex for spying purposes - but points for coming up with the concept of "Brewers Bog" and how most potions masters are probably pretty cranky from all the fumes they inhale.
Anyways - pertinent to this discussion - I like him preferring the simpler food, but it also gives a look at how he probably had to 'learn' his manners and much more to attempt to fit-in. In which case, I can see him learning how to make certain dishes just so he could have a practice run before having to eat them at a Malfoy Dinner party - things like escargot, steak tartare, possibly even sushi once the '80s hit (especially so he could learn to use chopsticks). -- Hwyla
Maybe as an adult, he learned to cook out of necessity when he wasn't working at Hogwarts? If he lived off biscuits, tea, and chocolate bars as you suggest, it might explain why he doesn't look too healthy. Even if he did cook, I don't see him taking a lot of pleasure in food, with all the responsibility and guilt weighing him down. Maybe he doesn't feel that he deserves any pleasures in life after he caused Lily's death--except maybe for giving detention to unruly Gryffindors!
How this adds up in my mind:
I am one of those who thinks the fish and chips wrapper on the riverbank was his. I think he'd like simple, traditional foods like this.
I don't see him fussing much (if at all) in the kitchen during canon, but, as I said, I think he would be able to cook some basic foods quite well. (In my personal canon, he learns from his maternal grandmother, both parents being dead by the time he's thirteen.) He loves bacon butties, and often makes them for breakfast, and he is, in his way, pertsnickety about tea. But, in general, in this period, he has neither the time nor the psychic energy to cook.
Post-canon, he actually learns to enjoy cooking, and the family cooks Sunday dinner together. I had a snippet of fic in mind to illustrate what I'd imagine this to be like, but never got to pound it out, as I had other deadlines and too much else going on.
His favorite foods:
Bacon, toast,porridge, fish and chips, tea, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (when he can get it), colcannon and champ, and mashed potatoes generally, gravy. He's not much for fancy experimental stuff, in my mind. He does like food when someone puts it in front of him, but this is the sort of thing he is inclined to cook for himself.
Alison