Like Water for Chocolate:
The Important Role of Food

Full of love, passion, family tradition and mouth-watering recipes, Laura Esquivel's "Like Water for Chocolate" is seasoned with magical intensity that will leave your heart boiling. This book expresses the value of true Mexican family tradition and how a girl's passion for cooking can affect the loved ones around her. Tita, a girl who is destined to a solitary life due to family customs, is brought into the world in what comes to be the one and only way she knows how to express herself. She was born on the kitchen table and was raised by the sweetest smelling meals known to man. Un-denounced to her, she was meant to remain in the kitchen, where she would become a servant until …show more content…

Laura Esquivel makes it prominent throughout the rest of the story that Tita's feelings are expressed through the food she prepares. This is a very important part of the story, because, as Tita lives her life in the kitchen, food is the only way she knows how to express herself and without these recipes she would be lost. Later in the story, Tita becomes angry with her sister Rosaura and they start to fight about how Pedro and Tita have been "sneaking around kissing in every corner" (214). Once Tita hears this, Rosaura follows it by saying that Tita can no longer be a part of her or Esperanza's life. This infuriates Tita but at the same time deeply hurts her. While they are arguing, Tita tears up pieces of tortilla to give to the chickens and when she feeds them she becomes shocked by their behavior, "the chickens were starting to make a huge ruckus on the patio. It seemed they'd gone mad or developed a taste for cock-fighting. They were giving little pecks at each other trying to snatch away the last chunks of tortilla left on the ground"(217). When Tita's sister marries the love of her life, her emotions in the food cause tons of people to wallow in heartache. The same thing manages to happen because of the anger she puts into tearing up the tortillas. Tita puts her emotions into the food she prepares, as if they were ingredients to keep the