Does Lord Voldemort eat and drink?

Question

I am wondering if Lord Voldemort eats and drinks and does other mundane things when he is so inhuman due to his horcruxes.

Is he like an ordinary man in other ways, with feelings of thirst and hunger?

Answer 1

JKR said on Twitter he would not need to.

In a Tweet, JKR said that she couldn’t really imagine him eating because it feels beneath him, and that she suspects he reached a point of inhumanity where he didn’t need food.

This has been addressed directly by JKR, though it is not explicitly stated in the books. An answer based on solely the text of the books is below.

He did whilst in the rudimentary body.

When Voldemort was in the rudimentary body, before he was restored to a proper body but no longer bodiless, he did indeed require feeding.

“Your devotion is nothing more than cowardice. You would not be here if you had anywhere else to go. How am I to survive without you, when I need feeding every few hours? Who is to milk Nagini?”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 1 (The Riddle House)}}

In the rudimentary body, he was fed on Nagini’s venom, not human food, but he explicitly stated that at that point he needed feeding.

If he did in his ‘real’ body is unclear.

Though it is never made clear in the books whether Voldemort actually needed food to survive, he is shown as still capable of eating after he has created Horcruxes, but before being ripped from his body at the Potters’ house. When he returns to Hogwarts to ask Dumbledore for the Defense Against the Dark Arts post, he had already created several Horcruxes and physically appeared much different.

“Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years before; they were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 20 (Lord Voldemort’s Request)}}

However, he tells Dumbledore he would be glad for a drink, though it is possible this was a lie.

“I am glad you approve,’ said Dumbledore, smiling. ‘May I offer you a drink?’

‘That would be welcome,’ said Voldemort. ‘I have come a long way.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 20 (Lord Voldemort’s Request)}}

He does indeed drink some of the wine. So it is still possible for him to drink after he had created Horcruxes, though it is not clear whether it is necessary for him to. Additionally, this does not prove whether Voldemort ate or was capable of eating in his later years, as he transformed further and experimented more with Dark magic after that meeting with Dumbledore.

“Having handed Voldemort a goblet of wine and poured one for himself, he returned to the seat behind his desk.

‘So, Tom … to what do I owe the pleasure?’

Voldemort did not answer at once, but merely sipped his wine.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 20 (Lord Voldemort’s Request)}}

Whatever his need for food was before being ripped from his body, it would be the same after he used the potion to restore his body as it had been right before he killed the Potters - he stated that the potion would return him to his old body and strength.

“But I was willing to embrace mortal life again, before chasing immortal. I set my sights lower … I would settle for my old body back again, and my old strength.

‘I knew that to achieve this – it is an old piece of Dark Magic, the potion that revived me tonight – I would need three powerful ingredients.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 33 (The Death Eaters)}}

Therefore, whatever his need for food was before being ripped from his body, it would be the same after his body was restored with the potion. However, it is never made clear whether he needed food to survive at either point. The Horcruxes themselves likely would not stop the need for food - they only keep a bit of soul protected somewhere outside the body to tether the soul to earth.

“Well, you split your soul, you see,’ said Slughorn, ‘and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one’s body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But, of course, existence in such a form …”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23 (Horcruxes)}}

However, creating Horcruxes may not be the only thing Voldemort did to make himself less vulnerable to death. He may have also took other steps to reduce the possibility of dying. One of these steps may have been eliminating the need for food so he could not possibly starve to death.

“I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost … but still, I was alive. What I was, even I do not know … I, who have gone further than anybody along the path that leads to immortality. You know my goal – to conquer death. And now, I was tested, and it appeared that one or more of my experiments had worked … for I had not been killed, though the curse should have done it.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 33 (The Death Eaters)}}

As Dumbledore said, Voldemort would hate being dependent upon anything for his survival, which is why he did not create a Philosopher’s Stone and created Horcruxes instead - he would not want to rely so heavily on the Elixir to maintain his life.

“While the Elixir of Life does indeed extend life, it must be drunk regularly, for all eternity, if the drinker is to maintain his immortality. Therefore, Voldemort would be entirely dependent on the Elixir, and if it ran out, or was contaminated, or if the Stone was stolen, he would die just like any other man. Voldemort likes to operate alone, remember. I believe that he would have found the thought of being dependent, even on the Elixir, intolerable.”
_{^{- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Chapter 23 (Horcruxes)}}

The same could be applied to the need for food. If it is needed for survival, it must be had regularly for all eternity, and if he cannot get any he will die. Voldemort would almost certainly wish to eliminate this dependence, and if such a thing is possible, would indeed have done so. Though the Horcruxes themselves do not seem to stop food being required for survival, that Voldemort did something else along his path to immortality to make it so he no longer needed food to survive remains a distinct and plausible possibility.

Answer 2

Possibly, as his body continued to be mortal

From canon it was established that Voldemort's soul was earthbound because of the Horcruxes. That doesn't have anything to do with his tangible body though, which was destroyed at the Attack on Potters. We know he can feel pain, which is one other "weakness" of the human nature (according to Voldemort):

“I miscalculated, my friends, I admit it. My curse was deflected by the woman’s foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon myself. Aaah... pain beyond pain, my friends; nothing could have prepared me for it. I was ripped from my body, I was less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost... but still, I was alive.

_{Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Chapter 33 - The Death Eaters [Emphasis mine]}

Him being immortal, means that his soul cannot pass away; his body still continues to function like any other mortal human body, effectively being a "container" for the eight mangled part of his soul.

As such, as his body is vulnerable to destruction like any other one, one can imagine that it also needs feeding and watering to continue its biological functions.

Although it's a little odd of course, to imagine Voldemort having a Lucullian fare, he could probably be fed with venom of Nagini, as he did when he was in his rudimentary body.