Published in Incorporating Writing Issue 4 Vol. 4

Like Water for Chocolate

Laura Esquivel

Black Swan, 1993
7.99
ISBN 0-552-99587-8
222pp

'Like Water for Chocolate' is a compelling, fresh and honest love story by Laura Esquivel. The plot centres on Tita who as youngest daughter is bound by tradition to care for her mother. By increasingly challenging her family's traditional rules and expectations Tita finds her own identity. Tita is the domestic stereotype breaking free of her contextual constraints; the kitchen is her territory where she recreates the foods of her culture, taking ownership of them through recipes and creation.

Revolution is a main theme in this novel. Set during the Mexican Revolution, 'Like Water for Chocolate' is deeply rooted in this context, and epitomises Magic Realism in its Latin American culture and post modern enchantment to celebrate of the wonder of everyday life. 'Like Water for Chocolate' was translated to English in 1992 after its success in its original Spanish (published 1989). Both the novel and its subsequent film version achieved critical acclaim as Latin American culture began to thrive in English speaking countries. The success of Esquivel's writing is within her emphasis of both the deeply culturally bound, and the universal experiences such as food, love and passion. Tita and her contemporaries are rebellious, both in conjunction with the Mexican Revolution and on a more personal level.

A balance between revolution and tradition is evident through the characters of Dr. Brown and Morning Light; the rationalised scientist and the alternative healer, who teach and inspire each other. The awareness of internal and external existence illustrated by these characters is crucial to the novel. Tita's moods affect the tastes and experience of her menus in contrast to the food's restorative and nurturing effects. This reasoned approach to the mythical reflects the application of tradition in contemporary society and relationship between the characters and food within the plot ricochets between cause and effect. Food is deeply embedded with associations from memory, tradition, and culture.

Tita creates dishes which have unprecedented effects on those who eat them, her food creates a magic spell which heightens the senses and communicates in a deep and powerful way. Tita personifies the complex relationship between people, life and food, which is an awareness that seems to fluctuate in contemporary society as we battle with ideas about nutrition, diet and social aspects to nutrition.

Esquivel's writing is very tactile and luscious to illustrate how Tita's cooking intrinsically links food and emotion. Tita oscillates between love and passion, and a distinction between these two is never clearly defined. Rejecting John's gentle adoration for Pedro's forbidden excitement, is the all consuming passion that she finds true love? 'Like Water for Chocolate' refers to boiling water to make hot chocolate, which is also a well known phrase to suggest passion. These twin meanings indicate a heat, arousal and expectation concurrent to revolution. Food acts as a direct metaphor for passion - as an aphrodisiac, or simply within the physical pleasure of eating.

The plot revolves around Tita's recipes. Each chapter pivots around a traditional recipe (which is not necessarily for food), explaining method and relevance which helps the reader to empathise with the culture. The novel is structured around the months of the year and these instalments indicate change and continuation, but the contents are not confined to this timeframe. This structure reinforces the idea of knowledge circling and being handed down the generations and through this recurrence, making the novel more identifiable. These staccato bulletins create informality and punctuate the swollen, intense lyrical verses.

Focussing on recipes (in contrast to food) indicates domination and authorship. The ingredients listings signify Tita's choices and her attempts to control a situation that she feels powerless in, much like the way that Chencha's lies enable her manipulation of events. Each food is symbolic, and by breaking down a menu (and the novel) into component parts we are able to understand it better. These recipes therefore develop the novel through structure and imagery, reflecting Tita as being about her and by her, fleshing out the recipe book she writes within the story. The recipes also help to highlight stereotypes in this novel's characters, such as the emphasis of the clash of maternal traits between Nancha and Mama Elena.

Esquivel's 'Like Water for Chocolate' is a humorous, chaotic and celebratory novel which rejoices in an exploration of topics that it is fundamentally unable to define. It cleverly opens up a specific culture with accessible anchors, reminding us of the importance of honest pleasures as 'when the talk turns to eating, a subject of the greatest importance, only fools and sick men don't give it the attention it deserves'.