Like Water for Chocolate

Food. If anyone ever denies they don't like food in general, it is an outright lie—because everyone loves food—good food that is. People need food to survive. How could anyone be invidious towards such vital delicacies that keep you breathing? Food is a universality that brings cultures and peoples together, a way for people to express themselves, as well as acting as a myriad of other mediums. Food is not merely for the sole purpose of creating and consuming, but it has also begun to take on deeper meanings within literary contexts that illustrate its symbolic significance to people. Take Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel, for instance: it is a story that encompasses magic, love, sex, war, and especially food¬—it's a Mexican cookbook filled with mouthwatering goods as the kitchen plays a centralized role within the novel. Throughout this story, food is not all it seems; Esquivel engraves much more depth and meaning in the idea and preparation of food, that reveals what food equates to her characters—as food becomes quite very sensual in this book! Like Water for Chocolate is organized in a series of monthly installments, that each contains a recipe. In the first few pages, Esquivel expresses Tita's "deep love for the kitchen, where she spent most of her life from the day she was born" (6). Right away, we can assume that the kitchen will play a significant role, since perpetual imageries and metaphors persist throughout the novel of food having "the power to evoke the past, bringing back sounds and even other smells that have no match in the present" (9). There are certain types of foods that may bring people nostalgia, but that is not the only feeling foods can evoke. Esquivel is able to transform Tita's seasoned cooking skills into more than just food, but even sadness, love, or sex. There was the time where she had to bake a cake for her sister's wedding, who was going to marry her lover, Pedro. She wept as she prepared the cake, as "weeping was