Like Water For Chocolate

This award winning book containing a pleasant melange of spiritual novel and classic Mexican cook book was a major motion picture hit in the '80s. You can read the book and then rent the movie, or see the movie and then read the book. Either way,if you like passion, good food, an engrossing story and a mystical view of love, you must read this book.

I first experienced this book in a darkened movie house where I sat enraptured until my friend's insistent elbow jabs nagged me into translating the action for her. The movie was shown in Spanish and had subtitles in Hebrew. Since I was living in Israel at the time that made sense to me. My friend, a highly educated woman who had lived in Berkeley for many years, did not understand any Spanish, or Hebrew. My two days of Spanish in junior high, plus my college minor in French, plus my knowledge of Hebrew enabled me to give her a running commentary. As you can imagine, I felt that I had missed a lot of the nuances in the story so I found a copy of the book in one of its many English translations. I read the book in just one evening and although there were not a lot of recipes which I wanted to try out on my family and friends, the book strongly captured my imagination. When I recently reread the book for the third time, it was even better than I had remembered.

This book, subtitled " A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes. Romances and Home Remedies" focuses on a family with three daughters, a very strong mother, and two female servants- a house of women. The youngest daughter, Tita, is the heroine (and the great aunt of the persona of the author). The author, who has inherited a book of recipes, presents the recipes, but they are always explained by circumstances in Tita's life- an ethereal life of passion, unrequited for years on end. Due to her mother's insistence Tita's "true love" Pedro is married off to Rosaura, an older sister, since it is the family custom, according to Mama Elena, that the youngest daughter must remain home and take care of her until her death. If you knew Mama Elena, you would know that this, for Tita, is a fate worse than death. This is a woman with an attitude! She is not your usual loving, kind, maternal mother. Your worst enemies should have such a mother! " Unquestionably, when it came to dividing, dismantling, dismembering, desolating, detaching, dispossessing, destroying, or dominating, Mama Elena was a pro."

The title describes the boiling hot passion that continues to exist, in spite of Mama Elena, between Tita and Pedro-enough heat to boil water for making special Mexican chocolate, in spite of Mama Elena. After a most unusual shower where Tita's body is so hot that the water drops falling on her body turn to steam she and Pedro finally secretly physically consummate their passion. Until this time their love has been kept alive through the love Tita has put into her food which she cooks for the entire family. Glances of longing, even after the birth of a son to Pedro and his wife, fan the flames of desire. The delicious food cooked by Tita literally perform miracles, and after many plot twists and turns the two lovers, but wait a minute. I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of this delicious book. To find out what happens to Mama Elena, Tita, and her sisters (including the one who rode off naked on a horse with a freedom fighter, but that's just a sub plot!), you must read the book.