Como agua para chocolate
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U.S book cover
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| Author | Laura Esquivel |
|---|---|
| Original title | Como agua para chocolate |
| Country | Mexico |
| Language | Spanish |
| Genre | Romance, Magical realism, Tragedy |
| Publisher | Doubleday, 1992 (Mexico) Perfection Learning, 1995 (U.S) |
| Pages | 256 (Spanish) |
| ISBN | (Spanish) ISBN (English) |
Like Water for Chocolate (Spanish: Como agua para chocolate) is a popular novel published in 1989 by Mexican novelist and screenwriter Laura Esquivel.
The novel follows the story of a young girl named Tita, who longs for her lover, 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.
Esquivel employs magical realism to combine the supernatural with the ordinary throughout the novel.
The book is divided into 12 sections named after the months of the year, starting in January and ending in December. Each section begins with a Mexican recipe. The chapters connects each dish to an event in the protagonist's life.
Tita de la Garza, the novel's main protagonist, is 15 at the start of the story. She lives on a ranch near the Mexico—US border with her mother, Mamá Elena, and her older sisters Gertrudis and Rosaura.
Pedro is their neighbor, with whom Tita falls in love at first sight. The feeling turns out to be mutual, so Pedro asks Mamá Elena for Tita’s hand in marriage. Unfortunately, she forbids it, citing the de la Garza family tradition that the youngest daughter (in this case, Tita) must remain unmarried and take care of her mother until her mother's death. She suggests that Pedro marries Tita's sister, Rosaura, instead. In order to stay close to Tita, Pedro decides to follow this advice.
Tita has a deep connection with food and a love for cooking, enhanced by the fact that Tita's primary caretaker as a child was Nacha, the family cook. Her love for cooking also comes from the fact that she was born in the kitchen.
In preparation of the wedding, Tita is forced to prepare the cake with Nacha. While preparing the cake, Tita is over come with sadness, and cries into the cake batter. At the wedding, everyone gets violently sick, vomiting everywhere. Suspecting Tita was behind the incident, Mama Elena punishes Tita. After the wedding, Nacha is found dead, with a picture of her fiancé.
Later, Pedro and Rosaura have a son, Roberto. Rosaura is unable to nurse Roberto, so Tita brings Roberto to her breast to stop the baby from crying. Tita begins to produce breast milk and is able to nurse the baby. This draws her and Pedro closer than ever. They begin meeting secretly, snatching their few times together by sneaking around the ranch and behind the backs of Mamá Elena and Rosaura.
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