Title: Harry Potter and the Lack of Lamb Sauce
Fandom: Harry Potter / Hell's Kitchen
Rating: T+
Category: Gen
Wordcount: 342,895
Chapters: 96
Status: In-progress
Pairing: Lamb sauce
Summary: Inspired by a post on Tumblr, this is a AU story set during Harry's sixth year at Hogwarts, with one big, foul-mouthed difference. Instead of Horace Slughorn, the position of Potions professor will be taken on by...Gordon Ramsay.
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12805206/chapters/29228961

I've been starving for something to read recently, much like the rest of you, but had the good fortune to come across this. At a third of a million words long, it's the kind of meaty tome you can really sink your teeth into. Characters are all well-seasoned, Ramsay especially. The author didn't just get into his spicy television persona but also the milder persona he shows to the children under his care, a la MasterChef Junior.

"Red Sauce is the foundation of an Italian restaurant surviving. Its creation is a labor of love and thought, as well as the proper combination of its constituent ingredients. I can teach you how to simmer marinara, plate rigatoni, and even pour a pairing of wine."

@Zombie

 

Wake up! Jesus! Fuck me, you're not a fucking chef!


Nice puns though, I’ll read it just for those.

 

You might be expecting this to be a fairly happy-go-lucky story, where Ron gets to shine in his own way. It does deliver on that, at least sort of. There is some drama in each contestant wanting to win and being disappointed when that doesn't happen, as well as a short spat between Ron and Harry.

That's the just first part of the story, though. After a while this takes a sharp right turn into drama street and rockets past all of the red lights.

Spoiler: Spoilers for courtesy's sake

Of the top 12, in the chapter I'm at (95) four are dead, one was broken out of a secret ministry deathcamp, another had their mind rebooted, two are doing whatever the Slytherins were doing when the Battle for Hogwarts was on, and Ron is basically just doing canon Ron things. Roughly a third of the wordcount is somehow wasted on vapid wellwishes and giving eachother birthday presents via a vaguely-literal facebook. Shit is bizarre.

"My mom is dead and my muggle father was brainwashed into being a soldier for radical anti-Death Eaters!" "My dad, the Unspeakable, realized I've been stealing his files to write my columns for Potterwatch!" "Lucius Malfoy was forced to be a suicide terrorist and lost both of his arms and a leg, but he's bonding with a gay squib over their love of opera!" "Gordon Ramsay's made-up alcoholic dad died trying to get Colin Creevey to safety in Glasgow!" "My mum was blown up by Death Eaters and could only be identified by her dental records!" Meanwhile, Cho at this moment was just farting around in America going "I saw Titanic! "

Ramsay barely exists in later chapters, for crying out loud. Come on.

In terms of technical writing it's not bad, honestly. It's just that it goes off the fucking rails, the pacing's shot to shit by the attempt at epistolary styles, and I really didn't care for all the characters. The few times I did they basically just disappear from the narrative entirely, like Bridget. Or Milicent Bulstrode. I can't, in all honesty, rate this above a 3/5.

 

An issue I had with this story, on top of the ones stated by BTT, was that Harry's first half or so of the story is just spent on rails of canon for book 6. Like I started straight up skipping anything with him in the scene by the midpoint. I quit after the final round of the competition and honestly didn't feel like the rest of the story was going to be worth reading. Interesting idea that just kind of gets wasted so we can have Magic Iron Chef Ron while Harry and Hermoine do... not much of anything. Still until it started going bugnuts around the time of the quarter finals it wasn't bad at all. So the first half gets a solid 3/5.

 

It was quite bland, honestly. But it got my ff sensors tingling, so I skipped forward, near the end - I do it sometimes to see where the story is going to develop, and

Spoiler: Result of peaking near the end

It’s basically bland canon rehash, with a lot-ridiculous amount, really-of characters thrown in. Some might be interesting in the beginning, but honestly I’d rather read anything new - even stupid, rather another canon rehash

 

I will endeavour to become a lamb animagus to alleviate my shame. Don't worry Harry, I'm coming.

 

I really enjoyed the first section of it - the actual competition. The war was pretty rehashy but not done poorly. My biggest gripe is the politics. The entire subplot with a militant pro-Muggle organization kidnapping Muggles and using them in an army felt very 'muh both sides'.
Like, I really don't know why it wasn't enough that the wizard Nazis are bad and so now we have an evil wizard antifa faction and a new super!centrist!gray faction of wizards who don't care about other people but when it's their children/families threatened by Voldemort it suddenly matters.
Some of the way that trans issues were handled also rubbed me the wrong way:

Spoiler

The way Noel's enby gender was handled (especially with Lucius) felt like it was played for laughs more than anything. I'm not trans, so I can't say with any sort of authority that it's distasteful. I was happy with the representation though, and I thought that Julien's plotline was generally well-done aside from the weird political bits mentioned above.

There were too many characters, especially towards the end, and I don't think all of them should have shown up to the final battle. I think that the story would have been much better if it wasn't about the war.

The whole letter section in the middle of the fic was also a waste of time and I skimmed through it very lightly.

On the whole, 3.5->4/5.

 

I'm usually the first one to 1-star a story for being canon rehash, but I found myself liking this one in particular.

Ramsay's character is interesting, with a cool backstory and written as a believable character that could exist in the Harry Potter universe.

I also found the MagicChef competition a nice change from the usual stories. Also, reading this makes me hungry for the magical meals described in the story.

5/5

 

I’m on chapter 11 so I won’t rate yet, but I have something to say. I was really enjoying this story despite it being a canon rehash because of how much I loved the premise and Ramsey as a character. Unfortunately, then the author had to start writing interludes for EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN character that made the competition. Look, I’m sorry but I really don’t care about what your random oc feels about getting in. It reads as filler to me and words the author could’ve cut out. That’s not mentioning how much the author tells in the aforementioned preludes.

 

The knifework on the this story is atrocious! The narrative MAY AS WELL BE FUCKING RAAAAAAWWWW for how cooked it is, and WHERE IN THE FUCK is the seasoning?! A LITTLE SALT GOES A LONG GODDAMN WAY! FUCK! MY NAN COULD COOK UP A STORY BETTER THAN THIS! I wouldn't feed this utter shite to the pigs!

I'd throw it in the trash, but that'd insult the trash! AT LEAST THE TRASH IS EDIBLE!

0/5, an utter disgrace to cooking everywhere.

 

This story is the reason that I ate so much food and became so fat!