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In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when the kids and Arthur get to The Burrow from Privet Drive and Molly is cooking and raging about Fred and George's shenanigans, the following occurs:

Mrs. Weasley slammed a large copper saucepan down on the kitchen table and began to wave her wand around inside it. A creamy sauce poured from the wand tip as she stirred.

In Deathly Hallows, Hermione says that this is not possible:

“Your mother can’t produce food out of thin air,” said Hermione. “no one can. Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfigura—”

“Oh, speak English, can’t you?” Ron said, prising a fish out from between his teeth.

“It’s impossible to make good food out of nothing! You can Summon it if you know where it is, you can transform it, you can increase the quantity if you’ve already got some—”

So how was Molly causing sauce to pour from her wand, seemingly out of thin air?

Cearon O'Flynn
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Mauve
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    I'm sure I read somewhere that Molly had a little bit of sauce in the pan already and simply made more of it, just can't think where I saw it now! – Often Right Jun 22 '15 at 00:38
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    I don't think this is a dupe. The answer in the other question says "I don't know" re: Molly producing sauce from her wand. That is not a useful answer. As to JKR being inconsistent, that, too, is not that case. She has always been clear that you cannot create food from thin air, but you can summon food that already exists (i.e. Hogwarts food for its students) from Point A to Point B. Neither are the questions asking about the same thing. I say it's not a dupe -- just my $0.02. :) – Slytherincess Jun 22 '15 at 00:48
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    Actually, they can make food out of thin air. It will just disappear in a few hours, and have zero nutritional value. Makes a great filler without the fat afterwards. –  Jun 22 '15 at 06:02
  • Fair call @Slytherincess ;) – Often Right Jun 22 '15 at 06:47
  • "I ordered my hot sauce an hour ago" - The Protagonist – Möoz Feb 01 '22 at 22:35

4 Answers4

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Since we know that real food can't be created from nothingness, that leaves us with a few options:

  • Molly is summoning the sauce from somewhere else, presumably elsewhere in the kitchen (decidedly possible. We see this happen repeatedly in the Hogwarts Dining Hall).

  • There was already some sauce in the pan and she's using a spell to make it expand (unlikely, given how clean she likes to keep them).

  • She's transforming something else in the kitchen into the sauce (like how a trek-style replicator works).

Or my personal favourite explanation;

  • Like Leprechaun gold, food that is created using magic will evidently dissipate after a while. Molly is conjuring a magic sauce to bulk out the real food (perhaps a low quality meat). As long as there's some nutritious content, when the sauce goes 'poof' they won't starve. This also explains why Ron and his brothers are so skinny despite everyone in the family taking second servings.

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Valorum
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    Your final answer is also inkeeping with the poor financial situation of the Weasleys, which makes it seem like the most logical answer to me. +1 – Dr R Dizzle Jun 22 '15 at 07:57
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    I think it's the opposite. What chef or health minded person wouldn't want all the flavor and sensation of fancy food without the negative health aspects. In real life it would be a luxury not a poor man's option. –  Jun 22 '15 at 12:25
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    @cde - I rather suspect it would explain why so many wizards seem so dammed unhealthy. Why buy quality steak when you can buy donkey and make it taste like steak? – Valorum Jun 22 '15 at 14:13
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    Transforming something else is inherently dangerous in HP. Since transfiguration requires the caster to maintain the spell forever if he/she wants it to stay that way. Eating sauce that was transformed will eventually go back to the original form in your body!! – Jose Luis Jun 22 '15 at 14:39
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    to be fair, all food that was cooked eventually goes back to its original form (ie constituent nutrients, not donkey steak turning back into real donkey, that is!). BTW horse meat (or donkey, one presumes) is just as much meat as beef, but quite a bit less fatty. – gbjbaanb Jun 22 '15 at 15:14
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    @joze, conjured, not transformed. Difference being that a conjured item goes back into being thin air, if that. Or it could simply be water transformed. –  Jun 22 '15 at 15:20
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    Why so negative regarding donkey meat. Originally salami was, and in some places still is, made of donkey meat. And as gbjbaanb mentioned horse meat is the healthier, and in my opinion tastier, choice than beef. – Thomas Jun 23 '15 at 13:14
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    @cde in real life lobster was once so looked down upon that it was only fed to prisoners and beggers, now it's considered such a luxury that people actually find the idea of people on food stamps eating it (even if they manage to get it cheaply) so offensive that they want to pass laws to buy it. When poor man's options like lobster, brown bread and quinoa become desired by the well-off the economic impact of that can price it out of the reach of the poor, but the magic here is Molly's own labour and so that can't happen. – Jon Hanna Jun 23 '15 at 14:01
  • @JonHanna true, but while the rich can afford healthy and nutritious food that also tastes good, the poor often do not. –  Jun 23 '15 at 14:03
  • "A creamy sauce poured (from the wand tip) as she stirred." it's very well said. – Invoker Jan 11 '17 at 11:50
  • The first three options don't really fit the description of the sauce "pour[ing] from the wand tip". – Alex Aug 21 '18 at 02:07
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Gamp's Elemental Law of Transfiguration does not allow a person to conjure food from thin air. It does not allow food to be made from that which did not exist before. However, J.K. Rowling has made it very clear that food that already exists can be summoned from one place to another. Molly likely summoned the sauce from another area, and channeled it so it poured from the end of her wand into the pot.

Slytherincess
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We see characters absorb things into their wands, for example when Hermione cleans spilled ink off of someone's homework. It is sort of sucked into the wand tip. I always suspected that Molly made a sauce earlier and, as many mothers might freeze food for later, absorbed it into her wand for use when she was cooking.

I don't recall much being expelled from a wand in this style, though warm air is used from the wand to dry clothes etc. Though I'm not saying they sat by a fire once absorbing warm air for use later.

ThruGog
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3

Food is a rather imprecise term.

Magic can conjure things a person can swallow, and can surely alter the taste of something. We even know that magic can even conjure things that are healthy to consume, such as water.

It is not a stretch to imagine that the sauce, while delicious, does not count as food in the relevant technical sense.