Like Water for Chocolate (novel)

Like Water for Chocolate

U.S. book cover
Author	Laura Esquivel
Original title	Como agua para chocolate
Translator	Carol and Thomas Christensen
Language	Spanish
Genre	Romance, Magical realism, Tragedy
Publisher	1989 (Mexico) Doubleday, 1992 Perfection Learning, 1995 (U.S)
Publication place	Mexico
Pages	256 (Spanish)
ISBN	978-0385721233 (Spanish) ISBN 978-0780739079 (English)

Like Water for Chocolate (Spanish: Como agua para chocolate) is a 1989 novel by Mexican novelist and screenwriter Laura Esquivel. It was first published in Mexico in 1989.^[1] The English version of the novel was published in 1992.^[2]

The novel follows the story of a young woman named Tita, who longs for her beloved, Pedro, but can never have him because of her mother's upholding of the family tradition: the youngest daughter cannot marry, but instead must take care of her mother until she dies. Tita is only able to express herself when she cooks.

The book has inspired a 1992 film of the same name, a ballet, and a 2024 TV series; 2 sequels were written by Esquivel. It was named by Spanish periodical El Mundo as one of the best Spanish-language novels of the 20th century.^[3]

15-year-old Josefita "Tita" de la Garza lives on a ranch in Piedras Negras with her domineering mother, Mama Elena, her older sisters Gertrudis and Rosaura, and Nacha, the ranch cook. Tita has a deep connection with food and cooking thanks to Nacha, who was Tita's primary caretaker growing up.

Tita falls in love with their neighbor Pedro Muzquiz. Pedro, who loves Tita in return, asks Mama Elena for Tita’s hand in marriage. However, Mama Elena forbids it, as according to a tradition of the de la Garza family, the youngest daughter must remain single and take care of her mother until her death. She suggests that Pedro marry Rosaura instead. In order to stay close to Tita, Pedro decides to follow this advice.

While preparing Rosaura's wedding cake, Tita is overcome with sadness, and cries into the cake batter. Nacha tries the cake batter, and suddenly is overcome with grief at the memory of her lost love, and is too ill to attend the wedding. At the wedding, everyone except for Tita gets violently sick after eating the wedding cake. After the wedding, Tita finds Nacha lying dead on her bed, holding a picture of her fiancé.

Tita pours her intense emotions into her cooking, unintentionally affecting those around her. After Tita makes quail in rose petal sauce for dinner one evening (flavored with her erotic thoughts of Pedro), Gertrudis becomes so inflamed with lust that she sweats pink, rose-scented sweat; when she goes to cool off in the shower, her body gives off so much heat that the shower's tank water evaporates before reaching her body and the shower itself catches fire. As Gertrudis runs out of the burning shower naked, she is carried away on horseback by revolutionary captain Juan Alejandrez, who is drawn to her from the battlefield by her rosy scent; they have sex atop Juan's horse as they gallop away from the ranch. Gertrudis is later revealed to be working as a prostitute in a brothel on the border and is subsequently disowned by her mother. Eventually, Juan and Gertrudis marry.

Rosaura gives birth to a son, Roberto. She is unable to nurse him while recovering from pregnancy complications, so Tita tries to feed Roberto herself. Miraculously, she begins producing breast milk and is able to nurse Roberto. This brings her and Pedro closer than ever. They begin meeting secretly around the ranch.

Rosaura, Pedro and Roberto move to San Antonio at Mama Elena's insistence, who suspects a relationship between Tita and Pedro. Roberto dies soon after the move. Upon hearing of her nephew's death, Tita loses her mind and secludes herself in the dovecote until John Brown, the widowed family doctor, arrives at Mama Elena's request to have him take Tita to an insane asylum. Instead, John takes her back to his home to live with him and his young son, Alex.

Tita and John soon fall in love, but her underlying feelings for Pedro do not waver. At the ranch, a group of bandits attack the ranch and paralyze Mama Elena. Tita returns to take care of Mama Elena. However, Mama Elena is paranoid that she is poisoning her out of spite and begins drinking ipecac to induce vomiting, making her sickly and causing her death.

After Mama Elena’s death, Tita accepts John’s marriage proposal. Pedro, Rosaura, and their daughter Esperanza return to Mexico, and Tita loses her virginity to him. She grows anxious that she is pregnant with his child. Her mother's ghost haunts her, telling her that she and her unborn child are cursed. Tita confirms that she isn't pregnant and banishes her mother's ghost from her life for good, but the ghost takes revenge by setting Pedro on fire, leaving him badly burnt and bedridden, although he recovers. Tita rejects John, informing him that she cannot marry him due to her affair with Pedro.

Many years later, Alex Brown and Esperanza get married. During the wedding, Pedro proposes to Tita. Tita accepts, but Pedro dies when they have sex after the wedding. Tita is overcome with sorrow and eats a box of candles. The candles are sparked by the heat of Pedro's memory, creating a spectacular fire that consumes the entire ranch. The only thing that survives the fire is Tita's cookbook, which is passed on to the narrator, Esperanza's daughter.

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The novel is a parody of periodicals published for women during the 19th century. These periodicals would publish fiction for women, alongside recipes and advice for homemaking.^[4][5] The ideal of womanhood as represented in the book is a woman who is stronger and more clever than the men in her life, pious, and who is in control of food and sex, as embodied by Mama Elena; Gertrudis and Tita subvert the ideal, while Rosaura tries and fails to uphold the ideal.^[4]

Bird symbolism is found extensively throughout the novel. Yael Halevi-Wise argues that Esquivel in the novel uses capons to symbolize Mama Elena's influence on Tita and Pedro - that of spiritual castration, in the way that she forces both to bow down to her will, and does not allow Tita to realize or consummate her love with Pedro.^[6]: 514 Additionally, Tita believes she hears a chick inside a preserved egg but finds that the egg is just an egg; Victoria Martínez connects this to Tita's unfulfilled desire to marry and procreate.^[7]: 30 Tita compares herself to a quail she fails to kill in one stroke, as she feels that Mama Elena has been slowly killing her all her life but refusing to do it in one stroke.^[6]: 515

At the beginning of the novel, Tita has been a generally submissive young lady. As the novel progresses, Tita learns to disobey the injustice of her mother, and gradually becomes more and more adept at expressing her inner fire through various means. Cooking through enlightenment she learned to express her feelings, and cope with her mother.

Mama Elena often resorts to violence as she forces Tita to obey her. Many of the responsibilities she imposes on Tita, especially those relating to Pedro and Rosaura's wedding, are blatant acts of cruelty, given Tita's pain over losing Pedro. Mama Elena meets Tita's slightest protest with angry tirades and beatings. If she even suspects that Tita has not fulfilled her duties, she beats her. One example is when she thought that Tita intentionally ruined the wedding cake. When Tita dares to stand up to her mother, blaming her for Roberto's death, Mama Elena smacks her across the face, breaking her nose. Since Mama Elena must protect herself and her family from bandits and revolutionaries, her cruelty could be interpreted for strength. Then again, Tita's later illusions indicate that Mama Elena's actions were far from typical and deeply scarred Tita.

The romantic love that is so exalted throughout the novel is forbidden by Tita's mother in order to blindly enforce the tradition that the youngest daughter be her mother's chaste guardian. However, the traditional etiquette enforced by Mama Elena is defied progressively throughout the novel. This parallels the setting of the Mexican Revolution growing in intensity. The novel further parallels the Mexican Revolution because during the Mexican Revolution the power of the country was in the hands of a select few and the people had no power to express their opinions. Likewise, in Like Water for Chocolate, Mama Elena represents the select few who had the power in their hands, while Tita represents the people because she had no power to express her opinions but had to obey her mother's rules.

Tita is born in the kitchen—a place that foreshadows her calling. Due to the tradition that requires the youngest daughter to care for her mother, Mama Elena forbids Tita from falling in love, marrying, or becoming pregnant, forcing her to work in the kitchen. As she becomes a young woman, Tita appears to conform to the gender role her mother expects; however, Tita rebels, creatively devising a way in which she can express her suppressed feelings and emotions through her cooking. She has the magical ability to send her desires and emotions into the food she prepares. Tita bakes the wedding cake for her sister Rosaura and the man she wishes she was marrying, Pedro. Deeply depressed about the fact that her sister is marrying her one true love, she places her feelings of despair and sadness into the wedding cake. When the guests eat the cake, they weep over their lost loves and eventually became intoxicated and sick. Another example of her inclusion of suppressed emotions into her cooking is when Tita’s blood infects the rose sauce and quail dinner that she serves to Pedro, Rosaura, and Gertrudis. Rosaura becomes physically ill while Getrudis is instantly aroused. Finally, as a result of Pedro devouring this food, he becomes aware of Tita’s feelings and has a better understanding of the passion and love that she has for him. Even though Tita is not allowed to share her intimate feelings, she conveys her passions to the world through the action of cooking and sharing her food.^[8]

Scholars have questioned the effectiveness of rebellion in the novel. John H. Sinnegen writes that Tita's rebellion "ends in a reconciliation with bourgeois, U.S.– style patriarchy".^[7]: 28 Victoria Martínez writes that Tita's fight against Mama Elena is meant to reflect the fight against the Porfiriato, leading the reader to expect liberation, but in fact, Tita is never truly liberated.^[7]: 29

Food is also one of the major themes in the story which is seen throughout the story. It is used very creatively to represent the characters' feelings and situations. Due to the magical nature of food in the story, it has literal effects on the people eating the food in terms of infusing the cook Tita's emotions into the food which are thus transferred beyond the food into the hearts and minds of those who devour it. The writer describes the impact of food on her narrative as "I wrote my novel with the intention that the love that is transmitted to food in the kitchen should be appreciated as it deserves, because I believe that anyone, just like Tita in my novel, can transmit emotions to food, and moreover to everything, that is, to each and every one of the activities they carry out day by day. When emotions are transmitted, the effect is very strong, it cannot be passed over. Others feel it, touch it and savour it."

Like Water for Chocolate's full title is: Like Water for Chocolate: A novel in monthly installments with recipes, romances and home remedies.^[9]

The phrase "like water for chocolate" comes from the Spanish phrase como agua para chocolate.^[9] This is a common expression in many Spanish-speaking countries, and it means that one's emotions are on the verge of boiling over. In some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, hot chocolate is made with near-boiling water, not with milk.

Like Water for Chocolate has been translated from the original Spanish into numerous languages; the English translation is by Carol and Thomas Christensen.^[10] The novel has sold close to a million copies in Spain and Hispanic America and at last count, in 1993, more than 202,000 copies in the United States.^[10]

In 2016, a second part was released for Like Water for Chocolate. titled Tita's Diary (Spanish: El diario de Tita). Tita's Diary further explores the life of Tita. A third book, The Colors of My Past (Spanish: Mi negro pasado, lit. 'My black past') was released in 2017. The Colors of My Past follows María, a descendant of Pedro and Rosaura, who discovers Tita's diary. ^[11][12][13]

The novel was made into a film of the same name, Like Water for Chocolate, by Alfonso Arau in 1992, starring Lumi Cavazos as Tita, Marco Leonardi as Pedro, and Regina Torné as Mama Elena.^[14]

A ballet based on the novel was created by Christopher Wheeldon and Joby Talbot in 2022. Mexican conductor Alondra de la Parra served as consultant on the ballet.^[15] It had its world premiere at the Royal Ballet on 2 June 2022, with Francesca Hayward as Tita, Marcelino Sambé as Pedro, Laura Morera as Mama Elena, Mayara Magri as Rosaura, Anna Rose O'Sullivan as Gertrudis, and Matthew Ball as John Brown. It premiered in the US at the American Ballet Theatre on 29 March 2023 and starred Cassandra Trenary as Tita, Herman Cornejo as Pedro, Christine Shevchenko as Mama Elena, Hee Seo as Rosaura, Catherine Hurlin as Gertrudis, and Cory Stearns as John Brown.^[16] The ballet received largely positive reviews.^{[17][18][19][20]}

As of 2020, a musical was in production. La Santa Cecilia is set to write the music, with lyrics by Quiara Alegría Hudes, libretto by Lisa Loomer, and direction provided by Michael Mayer.^[12][21]

In 2024, HBO announced a new six-part adaptation for television.^[22] Executively produced by Salma Hayek and starring Azul Guaita as Tita, Andrés Beida as Pedro, and Irene Azuela as Mama Elena, it received positive reviews.^[23] It was renewed for a second and final season in December of that year.^[24]