An Interesting Course of Events
Ginny had decides she was in heaven. She was placed at a tiny table down in the kitchens, and the house-elves had brought out so many ice creams and desserts that she had long since forgotten the break-up with her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend, she reminded herself.
At the moment the elves were preparing for dinner, and carried dish after dish onto the five huge tables that filled up parts of the kitchen. Ginny frowned. She hadn't really noticed before, up in the glory and chatter of the great hall, that the meals mostly consisted of English, Irish and Scottish food. There were far to go between the foreign dishes. A new house-elf appeared next to Ginny and broke her train of thoughts. "All right, miss?" She asked. "Hello Slenka." Ginny smiled. "I was just thinking. Why are there hardly any foreign dishes?" The young house-elf, still a bit unfamiliar with the Hogwarts-ways, turned her head slightly to take in the food that was being placed on the tables. "I don't know miss." She answered honestly, "but I guess they make what they know. They have been brought up in this castle for generations upon generations." Ginny smiled at the unusual elf.
Slenka had had to move with her brother and parents with the old couple that owned them when she was very young, and had been lost. Then a young couple had taken her in, and took good care of her until they died in a muggle-accident of some sort. Slenka had then begun on her way towards Hogwarts, and had been found by Ginny in the forest, totally exhausted. Ginny had brought the young elf to the headmaster, and when she got bettered she had been offered a job. The most notable difference between Slenka and the other house-elves where her behaviour towards humans. She did her work perfectly, but she would only take direct orders from the headmaster, Ginny, Dobby (who was the unofficial leader of the house-elves who got paid) and Isma, the oldest of the house-elves. Ginny watched amused as Slenka got hold of an young house-elf, who blushed furiously as he met her gaze, to find out about the dishes.
"He affirmed what I told you, they've never bothered to make something new, unless it was specifically required of them." Slenka excused herself, and was set to work with some pudding. Ginny leaded back in her seat heavily it thought throughout the entire meal. Only when the house-elves had eaten themselves and cleaned up did she rise. Immediately she caught the attention of every single elf. "We need some changes."
The following day was a Saturday, and luckily so. Ginny rose early and quickly reached the kitchens. She had spent the previous evening looking trough the whole dormitory, until she found her aunt's old book of recipes. The book contained recipes from several counties in Europe, including countries like Spain, Italy, France and Greece. She brought Slenka with her to the oven furthest away from everyone else, and there they proceeded with their plan. Around noon the finished, and Slenka was sent to find Isma.
The old elf trotted across the kitchen safely kept up by Slenka. Every passing elf bowed to Isma, Ginny noted. Finally the elf had reached the table where Ginny was sitting. The table was filled with several foreign dishes for the chief-elf to taste and, hopefully, approve.
The table was bursting with lasagne, moussaka and a variety of pasta-dishes. There were several examples of barbecue food, a heap of different chips, different typed of meats and fishes and birds in excellent sauces of orange and lemon and tomato and onion and almost everything you could think of. There also were Italian pizzas and some American pan-pizzas, tacos, tortillas and salsas.
Then there were the desserts. There were banana splits, and rhubarb soups, spicy cakes, fresh puddings, fruit porridges and sugar-coated fruits and hot berry-sauces.
There were smoothies of fruits and berries, there where flavoured ice water, ice tea, and a huge variety of fruit juices and lemonades.
Ginny smiled as the eyebrows of the elf rose notable. She handed the old elf a fork and leaned back, hoping for that sweet stamp of approval.
Ginny sprinted up from the kitchens and into the Great Hall. She stopped for a spilt second at the door to localise a place to sit, and hurried over to the Gryffindor table and slipped into a seat between Harry and a second-year boy, opposite Ron and Hermione. "Aren't the food coming soon?" Ron whined. Hermione rolled her eyes, a clear sign that Ron's stomach had been rumbling for quite some time. Ginny hid her grin in a cough, and turned to the teacher's table. Ginny had been afraid that she'd miss the appearing of the food and the looks in people's faces, but since Dumbledore was announcing something at her entrance she had reached it. Dumbledore was finishing, she noted. "That's all for today. Enjoy your meal!" Dumbledore dropped excitedly down in his seat and the food appeared. And jaws dropped immediately. Laughter slipped from Ginny's lips as she took in the Great Hall. Ron's hand was frozen in mid-air as he had been prepared to grip the food closest to him from before it had appeared. Hermione's mouth was working soundlessly, and Harry looked like he had arrived in food-heaven. Ginny moved her gaze and found the Headmaster frozen in the most unflattering position, a hungry-gleam still in his eyes and an expression that could only be described as definitive shock etched into his features. The faces of MacGonnagal, Hagrid and, surprisingly, Snape were braking into enormous grins, the rest of the teachers following suit, except for Dumbledore, of course, still frozen in shock. It was terribly apparent that nothing had surprised him this thoroughly in years. Ginny turned to the students in the hall. They had apparently gotten over their initial shock, and were now tucking in. Ginny grinned widely and loaded her plate with various dishes, enjoying the happy chit-chatter of the hall approving the food.