|
 Like Water for Chocolate, a love story, is the first novel of screenwriter Laura Esquivel. The book is better if you allow superstition and Mexican folklore to pervade your mind.
Esquivel first wrote Like Water for Chocolate in monthly installments with a recipe ... a fitting attraction for two reasons. First, the feminine soul of nurturing and snuggling the spirit of the beloved is often tied to food. And second, Esquivel, though an educated woman of the world, is only one generation removed from the four characters in her book.
Like Water for Chocolate opens when Tita, the younger of two sisters, falls in love with Pedro. All would be well, but Mexican custom and expectation prevail. The matriarch, Mama Elena, who owns a prosperous ranch, grooms Tita to be her cook and the servant of her old age and Rosaura, the older daughter to marry. With one command, Elena solves the problem by marrying Rosaura to Pedro, thereby taking Pedro out of the picture for Tita and retaining the younger daughter for her destiny as her mother's caretaker.
The fun begins with the wedding cake Tita makes and bakes for Rosaura and Pedro and the feelings Tita stirs into each sensually explosive piece. Spurred by her first emotive success, mealtime and the next romantic adventure in a hacienda that houses the main characters, becomes the focus of each chapter of Like Water for Chocolate. Never has food been so engaging and sensual.
|
