Like Water For Chocolate
Ranked #2,245 in Books, Poetry & Writing, #84,886 overall
By Laura Esquivel
Tita and Pedro are in love but will they ever be together? Over Mama Elena's dead body!
Tita, brought up in the kitchen, finds the only outlet for her passion is in cooking. Those who eat her food feel an intense version of the emotion she had when she prepared it.
Tita, being the youngest daughter, cannot marry Pedro. She must stay at home and look after her Mama Elena. However Mama Elena has another daughter who is only two years older.
Pedro accepts Mama Elena's cruel offer of Rosaura's hand in marriage so that he can be close to Tita, unfortunately under Mama Elena's ever-watchful eye!
Tita, brought up in the kitchen, finds the only outlet for her passion is in cooking. Those who eat her food feel an intense version of the emotion she had when she prepared it.
Tita, being the youngest daughter, cannot marry Pedro. She must stay at home and look after her Mama Elena. However Mama Elena has another daughter who is only two years older.
Pedro accepts Mama Elena's cruel offer of Rosaura's hand in marriage so that he can be close to Tita, unfortunately under Mama Elena's ever-watchful eye!
The Story Starts with an Onion
"For her laughing was a form of crying."
"The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can't stop."
Tita is so sensitive to onions that they make her cry when she's sill in the womb. One day the crying becomes so violent that she's born early, amidst a flood of tears, on the kitchen table.
The flood of tears from Tita's birth dry in the sun and leave behind enough salt to fill a ten pound sack.
Tita is so sensitive to onions that they make her cry when she's sill in the womb. One day the crying becomes so violent that she's born early, amidst a flood of tears, on the kitchen table.
The flood of tears from Tita's birth dry in the sun and leave behind enough salt to fill a ten pound sack.
Like Water For Chocolate...
...by Laura Esquivel.
Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies
Amazon Price: $7.25 (as of 02/17/2012)
“...For Tita the joy of living was wrapped up in the delights of food.”
Tita De La Garza
Our heroine.
Poor Tita. Between Mama Elena's cruelty and Pedro's stupidity, Tita is being torn apart.
Thank goodness she has a refuge in the kitchen! Unfortunately it's hard to keep one's feelings to one's self when you put your heart and soul into your cooking.
Tita is cursed, as the youngest daughter, to stay at home and look after her mother.
"Mama Elena was merciless, killing with one blow. But then again not always. For Tita she had made an exception; she had been killing her a little at a time since she was a child, and she still hadn't quite finished her off."
Thank goodness she has a refuge in the kitchen! Unfortunately it's hard to keep one's feelings to one's self when you put your heart and soul into your cooking.
Tita is cursed, as the youngest daughter, to stay at home and look after her mother.
"Mama Elena was merciless, killing with one blow. But then again not always. For Tita she had made an exception; she had been killing her a little at a time since she was a child, and she still hadn't quite finished her off."
An Apetite for Passion
A Mexican cookbook by Like Water for Chocolate Author, Laura Esquivel.
An Appetite for Passion Cookbook
Amazon Price: $4.89 (as of 02/17/2012)
Characters
A brief look at some of the characters.
Tita De La Garza- Our magical heroine.
Pedro Muzquiz- Tita's sweetheart. He marries Tita's sister to be closer to Tita. Will he and Tita ever be together?
Don Pascual Muzquiz- Pedro's father.
Mama Elena- evil Mama Elena is our antagonist. But what made her into the woman she is?
Rosaura- Tita's sister. Rosaura marries Pedro.
Gertrudis- Tita's sister, a victim of Tita's cooking!
Nacha- The cook who brings up Tita.
Chencha- The maid.
Dr John Brown- A doctor who falls in love with Tita.
Alex Brown- Dr Brown's son.
Katy- Katy cooks for Dr Brown and takes care of his son.
Morning Light- Dr Brown's Kickapu Grandmother.
Juan Alejandrez- A rebel.
Father Ignacio- Parish priest and gossip.
Rosalio and Guadalupe- Mama Elena's farmhands.
Nicholas- Mama Elena's farm manager.
Pedro Muzquiz- Tita's sweetheart. He marries Tita's sister to be closer to Tita. Will he and Tita ever be together?
Don Pascual Muzquiz- Pedro's father.
Mama Elena- evil Mama Elena is our antagonist. But what made her into the woman she is?
Rosaura- Tita's sister. Rosaura marries Pedro.
Gertrudis- Tita's sister, a victim of Tita's cooking!
Nacha- The cook who brings up Tita.
Chencha- The maid.
Dr John Brown- A doctor who falls in love with Tita.
Alex Brown- Dr Brown's son.
Katy- Katy cooks for Dr Brown and takes care of his son.
Morning Light- Dr Brown's Kickapu Grandmother.
Juan Alejandrez- A rebel.
Father Ignacio- Parish priest and gossip.
Rosalio and Guadalupe- Mama Elena's farmhands.
Nicholas- Mama Elena's farm manager.
“Nor am I going to allow you to ruin your sister's wedding with your acting like a victim.”
Wedding Cake
A Recipe for February.
Nacha and Tita use 170 eggs to make Rosaura and Pedro's wedding cake, each egg being added two at a time.
Exhausted and heartbroken, Tita cries into the cake mixture, mourning the loss of her love to her older sister.
What effect will her tears have on everyone who eats the cake?
Exhausted and heartbroken, Tita cries into the cake mixture, mourning the loss of her love to her older sister.
What effect will her tears have on everyone who eats the cake?
“This was the way she entered Pedro's body, hot, voluptuous, sensuous.”
Quail in Rose Petal Sauce
A recipe for March.
When Pedro gives Tita roses Mama Elena orders her to throw them away.
Tita runs to the kitchen, clutching the roses to her body so tightly that the pink petals turn red with her blood. She decides that instead of throwing the roses away she's going to use them to make quail with rose petal sauce.
"With that meal it seemed they had discovered a new system of communication, in which Tita was the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis the medium..."
What happens to poor Gertrudis after eating the rose petal sauce?
Tita runs to the kitchen, clutching the roses to her body so tightly that the pink petals turn red with her blood. She decides that instead of throwing the roses away she's going to use them to make quail with rose petal sauce.
"With that meal it seemed they had discovered a new system of communication, in which Tita was the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis the medium..."
What happens to poor Gertrudis after eating the rose petal sauce?
Learn to cook Mexican...
...on Amazon.
Making matches
...A recipe for June.
"Each of us is born with a box of matches inside us but we can't strike them all by ourselves..."
"...if a powerful emotion should light them all at once... then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origin we had lost."
"...if a powerful emotion should light them all at once... then a brilliant tunnel would appear before our eyes, revealing the path we forgot the moment we were born, and summoning us to regain the divine origin we had lost."
What did you think?
Write a review, add a comment, or debate someone who disagrees with you.
I think this is a great book, full of delicious recipes and passion. But what do you think?
What did you think?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byLove it! Great read.
kimmanleyort says:
Ahhh, you've helped me to relive this book that I read years ago. Makes me want to read it again. You did it justice!
Posted July 20, 2009
MeltedRachel says:
I adore Laura Esquivel's books. I love magic reality and the way that all the magic is just accepted as normal for the characters.
Posted June 21, 2009
papawu says:
It was incredibly emotional. It put me through the full spectrum of human emotions.
Posted June 09, 2009
It's a bit far-fetched!
Rate it, if you dare...
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Find out more...
The Author, the book and the themes therein.
- Laura Esquivel
- Wikipedia entry for Laura Esquivel.
- Like Water for Chocolate
- Wikipedia entry for Like Water for Chocolate.
- Mexican Revolution
- Find out more about the Mexican Revolution on Wikipedia.
Like Water for Chocolate...
...on DVD.
Like Water for Chocolate
Amazon Price: $7.00 (as of 02/17/2012)
The Law of Love...
...by Laura Esquivel.
I've read this book too. It's the story of Azucena, an astroanalyst, who meets and loses her twin soul in one night. Will she ever find him again?
If you buy it secondhand, make sure you get a copy with the accompanying CD.
This is a beautiful novel with illustrations and music.
If you buy it secondhand, make sure you get a copy with the accompanying CD.
This is a beautiful novel with illustrations and music.
THE LAW OF LOVE.
Amazon Price: $0.01 (as of 02/17/2012)
Simply Irresistible...
...a similar idea.
I saw this film late one night and it struck me as being similar in some respects to Like Water for Chocolate.
curated content from YouTube
What's the buzz about Like Water For Chocolate?
Find out below!
- Bridgeton film/food festival
- Bridgeton, NJ, is poised for its second annual one-day/one-film food festival, April 21, with a screening of Like Water for Chocolate, director Alfonso Arau's 1992 film based on the novel by Laura Esquivel. Eventgoers will be treated to a beer/wine ...
- St. Paul Central teachers read banned books aloud in Arizona protest
- Among the "banned" books they're reading are: "House on Mango Street," "Diary of a Part-Time Indian," "Like Water for Chocolate" and Shakespeare's " The Tempest." We felt driven to do something when a bill in Arizona was passed that would effectively ...
- Oscar Watch: Controversial Hollywood Cocktails At Quince
- We tip our hat to Quince for dippings its toes in controversial waters. - Tita's Sangaree: "As Tita expressed herself through her cooking in ?Like Water for Chocolate,? Harrison does so with our version of a traditional Sangaree, with Tequila Reposado, ...
- Where is the Mexican Atticus Finch?
- Read these books: The House on Mango Street, Like Water for Chocolate, Parrot in the Oven, Rain of Gold. Over the summer, my Puente students read Rain of Gold. It is an epic tale of a family who escapes the Mexican Revolution and makes it to California ...
Other Novels about Food and Drink...
...on Amazon.
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MeltedRachel
Jun 10, 2009 @ 3:42 am | in reply to papawu | delete
- Thanks so much :)
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papawu
Jun 9, 2009 @ 9:49 pm | delete
- I actually both read the book and watched the movie and found it somewhat maddening. It pretty much shows just how devastating family interference can be in matters of the heart. Great review.
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Postscript of utmost importance
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I'm Rachel, a textiles artist from the southwest of England.
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