Essay/Term paper: Like water for chocolate

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Book Reports

Like Water for Chocolate:  Does your family have any traditions? Do you
eat certain foods for certain holidays? Traditional values and family are
important in many cultures, but they seem to play an especially important role
to Mexicans (Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia). One of the most important parts of
their culture is food.

Traditions

Does your family have any traditions? Do you eat certain foods for certain
holidays? Traditional values and family are important in many cultures, but they
seem to play an especially important role to Mexicans (Microsoft Encarta
Encyclopedia). One of the most important parts of their culture is food. Much of
Mexican"s daily routines and traditions revolve around the ritual of preparing
the food and eating it (Mexican Cuisine and Cooking). In Laura Esquivel"s
novel, Like Water for Chocolate, the food (recipes) and tradition are the main
part of the book just as they are the main part of the Mexican tradition.

Esquivel"s novel is very different from most books. Her novel incorporates
recipes into the book in order to tell a story. These recipes, however, are not
only formulas, but they are memories and traditions being passed down from
generation to generation. Each chapter begins with a new recipe, and these
recipes are used to tell Tita"s life story, the main character and narrator in
Like Water for Chocolate. Tita becomes the focus of her family. This occurs
because she is most closely connected with food preparation. This closeness to
the food is seen from the first "scene" in the book where she is born. "Tita
made her entrance into this world, prematurely, right there on the kitchen table
amid the smells of simmering noodle soup, thyme, bay leaves, and cilantro,
steamed milk, garlic, and of course, onion." (Esquivel 5-6). This shows Tita"s
connection to food which grows through out the book. Tita prepares certain
dishes for special occasions and at different times of the year.

Not only does Tita prepare certain dishes for different occasions, but
Mexican"s also prepare different dishes for certain occasions. For example, a
tradition for a wealthy Mexican family is what is called a country gathering.
This is a gathering of family members. At this gathering, they began with a
breakfast of fruit, eggs, beans, chilaquiles, coffee, milk, and pastries. They
would then go out on horseback after their typical breakfast (Lomnitz and Perez-Lizaur
187). Some of the holidays that they make special dishes for include: Dia de la
Candelaria, day of the dead, and Christmas. Dia de la Candelaria is the day that
marks the end of the Christmas season. On this day, it is a tradition to eat
tamales and drink atole, a drink that goes with tamales and is made from
cornstarch. This is not the only part of this tradition but it is what most
Mexican"s think of when they think of this day. The traditional Christmas Eve
meal is usually turkey and other Mexican foods that go with it (Mexican
Culture). Different dishes are also used for events such as pregnancy, sickness,
marriage, and almost any event that could happen in a persons life.

In Esquivel"s novel, the recipe that is made in each chapter is selected
based on what happened in the chapter. Tita prepares turkey mole for Roberto"s
baptism (65). Then later on in the novel to help Tita"s "sickness",
Chencha prepares ox-tail soup to cure what no medicines had been able to cure
(125). For marriage, Tita prepares a certain kind of wedding cake with icing and
a certain filling. Tita takes her time in preparing each dish and makes sure to
follow each recipe or formula carefully.

However, following the recipe may not ensure the dish turns out as it is
intended to. Esquivel seems to believe that in the recipes, there are more than
just tangible ingredients; there is something more to the recipes that is
intangible. These intangible ingredients consist of love, patience, sorrow, and
hate all of which are feelings that Tita has throughout the novel. These "extra"
ingredients cannot be seen by just looking at the dish. They can only be "seen"
when the meal or dish has been eaten. For example, the meal that Tita prepares
with the rose petals. She prepares this meal with passion and love. However,
this is not seen until Gertrudis gets in the shower and a soldier, Juan, smells
the aroma that is coming from her. Esquivel elaborates,

The aroma from Gertrudis" body guided him. He got there just in time to
find her racing through the field. Then he knew why he"s been drawn there.
This woman desperately needed a man to quench the red-hot fire that was raging
inside her. A man equal to loving someone who needed love as much as she did, a
man like him. (55)

This is a direct effect from the extra ingredient, passion which she felt for
Pedro, that was added by Tita unconsciously. This new element gives the food a
whole new meaning, one that only Tita and Nacha, the family cook and nanny,
understand. A prime example of a character that has no familiarity with food
preparation is Rosaura, which is seen when she tries to cook for the family. She
follows the recipe exactly (as Tita would), however it tastes bad:

There was one day when Rosuara did attempt to cook. When Tita tried nicely to
give her some advice, Rosaura became irritated and asked Tita to leave her alone
in the kitchen. The rice was obviously scorched, the meat dried out, the dessert
burnt. But no one at the table dared display the tiniest hint of displeasure,
not after Mama Elena had pointedly remarked: "As the first meal that Rosaura
has cooked it isn"t bad. Don"t you agree, Pedro?"….Of course, that
afternoon the entire family felt sick to their stomachs. (50-51)

The sickness that the family felt was that of the hate in she prepared the
meal with. The hidden ingredients can also be seen in the meals that Tita
prepares for Mama Elena. The ingredients that Tita subconsciously adds to her
food are partial done through Nacha.

Nacha might only be a cook and nanny to the De la Garza family, but she plays
a much larger role as mother to Tita. Nacha is much more of a mother than Mama
Elena could ever be to Tita. Through all the years that they spent in the
kitchen, Tita was building a strong relationship with the food she prepared.
This was more of an experience than anything else was for Tita. Susan Lucas
Dobrian goes on to further explain this idea in her article "Romancing the
Cook." She describes the meal preparation:

The kitchen becomes a veritable reservoir of creative and magical events, in
which the cook who possesses this talent becomes artist, healer, and lover.
Culinary activity involves not just the combination of prescribed ingredients,
but something personal and creative emanating from the cook, a magical quality
which transforms the food and grants its powerful properties that go beyond
physical satisfaction to provide spiritual nourishment as well. (60)

The meal preparations that Dobrain describes are also linked to Nacha, Tita"s
mother figure.

Tita gets her great cooking skills from Nacha, this is there way of passing
down the recipes from generation to generation. The recipes in Like Water for
Chocolate are kept in the family. Tita then passes the recipes to Esperanza.
Esperanza then passes them to her daughter who puts them in the book. The
recipes that are passes down from generation to generation are also what tell us
the story of Tita. The recipes are taught to the next generation. However, they
are taught not only to be followed, but also how to know the different qualities
of the ingredients that go into each dish. This is only something that can be
passed down from generation to generation. In the book, The Mexican Elite
Family, Larissa Addler Lomnitz and Marisol Perez-Lizaur state, "Her cooking is
famous for the old-style Mexican recipes she uses, inherited from her mother and
grandmother. She will share these recipes with no one but her own daughters."
(97). This is a prime example of how Mexican"s value food and the traditions
they have within their blood family.

Throughout the book, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, food plays a
main role, but not only does it play a main role in the novel, it also plays a
large role in Mexican culture. The novel carries many of the culinary traditions
that Mexicans find very important in their culture. Mexican women play a big
role in domestic life and must know how to prepare food. The ability of Mexican
women to create dishes (for every occasion) is one that has become a great
tradition in Mexico. A tradition that I wish would be a part of the culture of
America, because it seems to be

something that makes Mexican families closer (something American"s need to
learn).

Works Cited

Dobrain, Susan Lucas. "Romancing the Cook: Parodic Consumption of Popular
Romance Myths in Como Agua Para Chocolate." Latin American Literary Review.
July-Dec. 96: 55-66.

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Trans. Carol and Thomas
Christensen. New York: Doubleday, 1992.

Lomnitz, Larissa Adler and Marison Perez-Lixaur. A Mexican Elite Family,
1820-1980: Kinship, Class, and Culture. Princton, New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1987.

"Mexican Cuisine and Cooking." Inside Puerto Vallarta Travel Magazine:
Puerto Vallarta, Mexica. <http://www.hypermex.com/html/pv_cook.htm>.

Mexican Culture. <http://mexicanculture.about.com/culture/mexicanculture>.

"Mexico." Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. 2000 ed. Microsoft
Corp,

1999.