Do You Think Voldemort Goes to the Grocery Store?

Murderers!

So, this is the sort of question that keeps me up at night.

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about the logistics of the Harry Potter books (probably because I have math and my mind, you know, tends to not like to think about math and stuff) and I've come up with quite the karfuffle. Where do wizards get their food? Now, this is only one of the many alarming, wizard social trends that I discussed in my earlier blog about the Hogwarts style of education, but still, I think we should take a moment to think about this.

Are there wizard farmers? Are their wizard super markets in Diagon Alley with flying vegetables and talking eggs and cheese that smiles at you? Because, if so, it is never mentioned in any of the books! Which is disheartening, because I would like my cheese to smile at me. Since the wizarding world seems to have nearly full employment (props to them on their economic planning), I guess there is enough labor to support this sort of system and, anyway, farming with magic would be pretty easy: you wave your wand and the cows milk themselves, you say a spell and all the sudden corn is popping out of the ground and breaking into a rousing chorus of Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.

He is not amused by your cracker preferences

And this, I suppose is necessary because, apparently, wizards eat a lot of weird things (how does one juice a pumpkin?), like chocolate frogs that are actually alive and moving when you bite them. Does it disturb anyone else that amphibian-cide in the Harry Potter books is treated with such light hearted frivolity? And Voldemort, of course, is even worse. He drinks Unicorn Blood! I don't think they carry that at Wegmans.

But seriously, is their some great, all wizard Trader Joe's (or Trader Dumbledore's) where Death Eaters go after a long day of levitating muggles and breaking out of Azkaban and bump into Mrs. Weasley or Tonks or someone and be all like "nice weather we're having. How's Draco? I heard he got his very own dark mark, you must be very proud. Say, where did you find the bezoar, it's so difficult to get really fresh bezoars anymore. And don't get me started on corn! Last night we were having dinner and our vegetables did a rendition of Mary Poppins!". Bellatrix and Sirius would meet in the dairy section and Bellatrix would be all "don't get the cheddar, it frowned at me the other day. This is what comes of cows drinking soda" and Sirius would be like "I long for a decent Gouda" and they would commiserate about their less-than-satisfactory cheese experiences. And then, in the cracker aisle, Harry and Voldemort would run into each other and Voldemort would be buying Ritz crackers because he'd be having a Death Eater party and everyone knows its good manners to bring crackers to a party and Harry would say that he likes Club crackers better and that's the secret reason that Voldemort is trying to kill him - you know, because he is such a dedicated Ritz cracker eater that he can't stand the idea that anyone in the world perfers Club crackers or worse, Triscuits!

Just kidding, that would be ridiculous. Everyone knows that wizards make house elves do all the grocery shopping (this message brought to you by S.P.E.W).

Just sayin'