Harry Potter and Honeydukes

Alas, we have reached my penultimate novel I will be analysing, and the final in the Harry Potter series (sorry, I couldn’t just pick one). Now I couldn’t publish a blog about food in fantasy literature without looking at one of the most fantastical elements of food in all of fantasy literature- in my opinion. And that is, of course, the legendary Honeydukes sweet shop presented to us in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999). Rowling describes the shop as this:

“There were shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable. Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-coloured toffees; hundreds of different kinds of chocolate in neat rows; there was a large barrel of Every Flavour Beans, and another of Fizzing Whizzbees, the levitating sherbet balls that Ron had mentioned; along yet another wall were ‘Special Effects’ sweets: Droobles Best Blowing Gum (which filled a room with bluebell-coloured bubbles that refused to pop for days), the strange, splintery Toothflossing Stringmints, tiny black Pepper Imps (‘breathe fire for your friends!’), Ice Mice (‘hear your teeth chatter and squeak!’), peppermint cream shaped like toads (‘hop realistically in the stomach!’), fragile sugar-spun quills and exploding bonbons.” (147)

Now, if that description isn’t enough to make any child want to go through all the ups and downs of the wizarding world just to get to that sweet shop then I’m not sure what will. Rowling entices us with sweet we are familiar with but uses adjectives such as “creamy” and “shimmering” to demonstrate just how delicious and beautiful they must be. Here we see the ordinary mixed with the extraordinary, which is again enticing for the child reader, we want to be in this sweet shop, experiencing what we have never experienced. The lengthy description of magical sweets really cements the world of fantasy we are in in this moment in time, it is like noting we could every imagine.

I couldn’t write about food depicted in Harry Potter without discussing this scene. Ultimately, it appears Rowling is appealing to every young readers fantasy. This is important whilst considering the novels low fantasy genre, as it would surely be more appealing to a young child reader if they can ever so slightly relate, yet expand on what they know and imagine sweets in there most extreme and fantastic capacity.

Thanks for reading,

Emily

Works cited-

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.

Wizarding World. "Harry sneaks into Honeydukes- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban". Youtube, Youtube. 20th Dec 2017. Web. 15th March 2018.