This week I read Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquirel. It follows our main character, Tita, and her life over many years as she combats struggles of family and love with rebellion through food. This book is divided into twelve chapters, each representing a month of the year although the book passes many years throughout. Each chapter is entitled with a month and a family recipie, and the back of the chapter title page will list the ingredients. Each chapter begins with PREPERATION: and weaves the instructions to make each recipe into the chapter, so the whole book simulates a cookbook, and is revealed to be parts of a cookbook left behind by Tita following her death. The book is set in Mexico near the Mexico-United States border during the time of the Mexico Revolutionary War, and incorporates many elements of magical realism.
The magical realism element of this book is one of the most important, with our main character seemingly being able to influence the emotions of those around her through her food. Her ability to convey her own feelings and desires is Titas main form of resistance for much of the book, as for much of her life she is held hostage by her mothers desire to keep her as a caretaker. I first want to highlight a series of events surrounding this ability and it’s impacts on her family.
The first time Tita escapes her house, it is in the form of rescue. Under the guise of taking her to a mental asylum, a local doctor who goes on to become her fiance rescues her from her mothers house. Tita had become incredibly distressed following the news of the death of her young nephew whom she had a maternal connection with. He had been the child of her sister and her childhood sweetheart, who had married after her mother had denied Pedro her hand. Titas family tradition dictates that the youngest daughter will never marry, and will be the mothers caretaker in her old age. In revenge for having tried to get married and having such a strong connection with both Pedro and her nephew, her mother sends Pedro, her sister, and her nephew to live in the United States. Upon receiving the news Tita yells back at her mother about her mistreatment and takes refuge in the dovecote. The next morning she was found, incredibly out of it, with a dead dove in her hands, still trying to feed it. Being known for feeding the doves, the family determines that she had fed it over and over in her state and it had died of indigestion. It’s easy to miss but I believe this dove to be the first of three creatures killed via Titas powers.
The second victim is her abusive mother. After her escape, her mother gets sick and Tita moves back to care for her, as her oldest sister is in America and her second eldest had been disowned. Despite being known around the village as being the best cook, her mother detects a bitterness in everything Tita cooks and claimed that her daughter was attempting to poison her. This bitterness is likely the translation of Titas bitterness at being the daughter taking care of their mother, and the awful treatment she still receives from her. Despite her precaution to have Tita eat everything prepared for her first, her mother dies within days. Tita feels free for the first time, until she is reunited with Pedro, and her sister Rosaura, pregnant with another child.
The final victim is Rosaura. Many years after the death of their mother, when Rosauras daughter is intending to marry her sweetheart. It is revealed that at some point in time, a treaty of sorts was reached between Rosaura, Pedro, and Tita. Rosaura, more concerned with her daughter turning out to be the perfect caretaker and social figure, agreed to not come between Pedro and Tita behind closed doors. Within this deal was the stipulation that Tita educate her within the family, and within the family traditions. Tita takes advantage of this to teach Esperanza to be more of a free thinker and advocate for herself and even convinces her sister to allow her to go to a school when she is older. It is here that she meets her sweetheart. I really enjoyed the quote “When Esperanza told Tita that when she felt Alex’s eyes on her body, she felt like dough being plunged into boiling oil, Tita knew that Alex and Esperanza would be bound together forever.” (pg.241) Her sister deeply opposes their marriage, wanting Esperanza to follow the family tradition. Three days after the most violent argument between the family about the subject Rosaura died of digestive issues. The timing of her death, the manner in which it occurs, and the all too vague description of her illness match her up to be the third death.
This book really demonstrates the connection between food and social-emotional well-being, which is something I studied really heavily last quarter. Throughout the book Tita is expressing her emotions through food, as she is allowed to nowhere else. The kitchen becomes her safe haven at a young age, and she regularly seeks comfort in it’s company. I particularly enjoyed a scene in which she sang to her beans to make them cook faster, and many other small moments of magical realism that really brought to the front the elements of culture and family which were also huge. The recipes are all Mexican family recipes that represent the mental state of context in which the main character is currently existing, and there is a certain level of irony that this act of labor she is assigned to after a ranch employee dies, she takes not only comfort but also revenge in her position. When Tita is trapped in a house where she feels she is slowly going mad from the pain, she twists these recipes that are so personal to the family into her own healing and vengeance.
There is a sister novel similar to this that is supposed to help you understand Tita more, I’m working on getting it for next week!