“Like Water for Chocolate,” by Laura Esquivel, demonstrates that each family goes through trials and tribulations through the traditional roles each member of the family plays. This novel expresses the life, struggles, and the ups and downs for a Mexican family. She explains much disappointment brought upon each family member, most typically from an untraditional daughter, Gertrudis. A young daughter that has a strong will to be not like the typical Mexican girls that follow the shadow of her husband. Three main points that Esquivel touches base upon deal with the part women play in the Revolutionary War, a Mexican marriage, and life from an untraditional child all from a woman.
In Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, Tita is obligated to serve Mama Elena until Mama Elena dies because Tita is the youngest daughter in the De la Garza family. As a result, Mama Elena denies Tita the right to marry Pedro and treats her as if she is a slave. The only sanctuary Tita can retreat to is the kitchen, where she spends most of her time with Nacha. Nacha transcends her role as the family cook and becomes Tita’s fairy godmother by serving as Tita’s confidante, guide, and source of comfort and happiness—even after her death. Nacha serves as Tita’s confidante.
In the novella Like Water for Chocolate, food is used as the medium to express Tita’s feelings. Due to Tita being mostly the one who does all the cooking, her emotions seep into the food that she is making accidentally and without her own control. In the novella, she was told to make all the food for her sister Rosauara wedding to Pedro. While she was making the food, her tears feel into the food as she was making it. Due to this, the entire guest at the wedding started throwing up once they ate her food.
Mary rolls her eyes. Mary explains that Clara needs carbohydrates for energy. Complex carbohydrates are good, but too much simple sugar is not. Mary tells Clara that she should snack on fresh fruits instead of jellybeans and eat more starch and fibre. Plain baked potatoes instead of French fries and high-fibre, fortified cereals instead of high-fat doughnuts would be healthier.
And the only place left for Mary Alice is her not-so-ladylike grandma, in her not-so-sleepy Illinois town. She doesn’t adjust very well because, like all schools there are bullies, popular kids, and just-plain-weird kids. Except she knows it is not Chicago, but she finds that hard to get used to. But Grandma took care of Mary Alice’s bullying problem by tricking the bully. Mary Alice was also very unhappy when Grandma told her about buttering Bootsie’s paws.
The book follows the story of a young girl named Tita who longs her entire life to marry her lover, Pedro, but can never have him because of her mother's upholding of the family tradition of the youngest daughter not marrying but taking care of her mother until the day she dies. Tita is only able to express herself when she cooks. I enjoyed this book because it taught me a lot about how one’s traditions can affect your life. This book goes against some beliefs that many people have because “Like Water for Chocolate” is a fiction book, it is believed fiction books cannot teach anything useful. But the lessons I learned are applicable to life and have also provided
Nacha, her caretaker, was preparing Tita to become the next in line of great family chefs. Tita’s birth was unusual in the sense that she had sensitive reactions to onions, which was her first connection with food. It would make her wail and upset, so much that it “brought
Her craving for it grew from day to day, and she began to waste away because she knew she could never get any” (154). This detail is quite significant because food is readily available even for those in struggle. Also, it is a bit idiotic; a woman is going mildly insane due to craving of lettuce and the lack of which she consumes. Additionally, other differences in cultural details became apparent. In modern times we all root for the “bad boy”.
This next line comes from an online review written by Janet Maslin, titled “Fried Green Tomatoes”, found on the NYT website explaining “The film's overstatement is such that Evelyn has to appear in flowered frocks and stiff hairdos, nibbling candy bars and gazing longingly at her equally rotund husband, to establish the fact that she is unhappy.” This line re emphasizes how Evelyn’s eating habits suggest her current unhappy state. In the movie she explains that she eats because she’s sad, and she’s sad because she eats. Her husband’s indifference to their marriage validates her insecurities, which further fuels the unfortunate cycle. This is a clear
With about two-thirds of Americans being obese, the Obama administration has been fighting hard to help Americans with the issue of obesity. Michelle Obama even made her apolitical personal project as first lady to teach Americans healthier eating habits(401). Warner continues in the article to say that we as a nation need to change our culture of food to begin to actually reverse our unhealthy habits. According to Warner, we need to make eating healthily, the cool or “desirable” thing to do. Specifically, she notes, that it should be a “freely chosen” option, not one that is forced by some governmental regulation or law(402).