This document provides an overview and analysis of the novel "Like Water for Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel. It discusses the plot, which follows the main character Tita and her family in Mexico at the start of the 20th century. Tita is not allowed to marry due to a family tradition, but expresses herself through her cooking. The document explores how food is used in the novel to convey emotions and the impact of the Mexican Revolution on the characters' lives. It also makes connections between the book and the works of Proust to discuss how food, memory, and storytelling are linked.
2. WHAT EXACTLY IS FOOD?
• MerriamWebster: “Material consisting essentially of
protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an
organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes
and to furnish energy; nutriment in solid form; something
that nourishes, sustains, or supplies.”
• “Eating is an agricultural act.” –Wendell Berry
• “Nature and culture, are also opposites in respect to
rawness and cooking.” – Claude Lévi-Strauss
• “It was an article of faith during the Sixties that the
personal was political—that by ‘revolutionizing’ one’s own
private life, the conscientious rebel would also transform
‘the system.’” —Warren Belasco
• “The narrative itself is the time machine, and memory is
the fuel.” — JamesGleick
Image Source:Walmart.com
3. COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE
OR, LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
• “A novel in monthly installments”
• Really, 12 recipes
• Tita, Mama Elena, Rosaura, Gertrudis
• Mexican Revolution
• Start of the 20th Century
• Ranch near US-Mexico border
Image Source: Penguin Random House
4. COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE
OR, LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
Image Source: LikeWater for Chocolate,The NewYorkTimes
5. ¡LA REVOLUCIÓN!
• ”Of all the women in the house,Tita was the most
qualified to take the open position of the cook, and
once there, could escape through her detailed
control of flavors, smells and whatever else she
desired.” (53)
• “Look what I’ve done with her commands! I’m tired
of it! I’m tired of obeying her!” (102)
• Los rebeldes and Mama Elena
• Las criadas (housemaids)
Image Source: Penguin Random House
6. ¡LA REVOLUCIÓN!
Corn vs.Wheat; Bordeaux wine and Champagne; Guajolote vs. Pavo; “Chocolate y Rosca de Reyes”
Image Sources: Noshon.it, Le Caveau Wines, Univision,YucatanTimes
7. A DETOUR: IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME
AND PROUST
• “I place in position before my mind’s eye the still
recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel
something start within me, something that leaves its
resting-place and attempts to rise, something that
has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I
do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting
slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the
echo of great spaces traversed.” (60)
• “But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists,
after the people are dead, after the things are broken
and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with
more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent,
more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain
poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us,
waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins
of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, the tiny and
almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast
structure of recollection.” (61)
Image Sources:
Biography.com,
Gastronomer’s
Guide
8. A DETOUR: IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME
AND PROUST
(WELL…A DOUBLE DETOUR)
Image Sources: Pop City, Pittsburgh
Quarterly, An OkieTraveler Out and About,
American Planning Association-Pennsylvania
Chapter
9. A VOLVER: TITA Y LA FAMILIA
• “…She understood perfectly what it would feel
like to be buñuelo dough as it was dropped into
boiling oil.” (21-22)
• Codornices y Pastel Chabela
• La caja de cerillos en su cuerpo
• ”Everyone has to find those detonators in order
to live, since the combustion that they ignite in
one’s self is what nourishes the energy of the
soul. In other words, this combustion is one’s
nourishment.” (119-120)
• Los chiles en nogada
Image Sources: Nosh On.It, Mexican Food Journal
10. A VOLVER: TITA Y LA FAMILIA
• ”Because this emotion is so strong...before our
eyes appears a brilliant tunnel that shows us the
place that we forgot at birth and calls us to
rediscover our lost divine origin.” (120)
• “Tita was the last link in a chain of cooks that
since the prehispanic era had transmitted the
secrets of the kitchen from generation to
generation...” (53)
• “This chocolate was prepared in the old ways.
Getrudis raised a prayer in silence and with
closed eyes, asking thatTita would love many
years more to cook the recipes of the family.
Neither herself or Rosaura had the knowledge to
do it; the day thatTita died she would die
together with the family’s legacy.” (182)
Image Sources:
Crafty Cooking
Mama,
Pinterest
