Like Water for Chocolate
by Laura Esquivel
The recap
On a family ranch in northern Mexico in the early twentieth century, Tita de la Garza grows up in the kitchen, learning its secrets from the household's old cook, Nacha. She falls in love with Pedro, and he with her, but family tradition decrees that the youngest daughter must never marry and must care for her mother until the end of her days. The formidable Mama Elena will not bend, and when she offers Pedro her elder daughter Rosaura instead, he accepts, if only to stay close to Tita. Left with feelings she cannot speak, Tita pours them into her cooking, and her dishes spill uncannily into the hearts and bodies of everyone who eats them. Told in twelve monthly chapters, each opening with a recipe, the book blends romance, family comedy and magical realism against the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution. It is sensual, playful and fiercely felt, a love story you can almost taste.
Why read it
For readers who like their love stories with a dash of magic and a full table, and for anyone who believes food can say what words cannot.
Fun facts
- 01
The Spanish original, Como agua para chocolate, is subtitled a novel in monthly installments, and each of its twelve chapters is named for a month and opens with a Mexican recipe.
- 02
The 1992 English translation by Carol and Thomas Christensen carried the subtitle A Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies.
- 03
Esquivel adapted her own novel for the 1992 film directed by Alfonso Arau, which became the highest-grossing foreign-language film released in the United States up to that time.
- 04
The book became a bestseller in Mexico and enjoyed similar success in the United States.
