THE STORY

Like Water For Chocolate is a love story set in Mexico, filled with rich recipes, written with unadorned, uncomplicated language. This is the story of Tita, the youngest daughter of the formidable matriarch Mama Elena who forbids Tita to marry her true love Pedro because tradition says that the youngest daughter must care for her mother until her death. Pedro marries Tita's oldest sister in order to be near Tita. All three, along with extended family members and eventually children, live under the same roof. Tita spends each day for 22 years yearning for the man sitting next to her at the dinner table. 

This is the story of a life-long conflict filled with passion, deception, anger, and pure love. Woven into the narrative are the recipes, which provide an ongoing metaphorical commentary on the characters, their culture, and their emotions.

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Tita's cooking has magical effects on those who try her dishes, making it so that people are able to feel the emotion Tita felt while creating the meal. The food is so vibrant and sensual, so imbued with her feelings of longing, frustration, rebellion, or love, that it affects everyone who eats it.

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The combination of all of these elements, with a healthy pinch of the supernatural thrown in, makes for a quirky book, sad and funny,  passionate and direct, told by Tita's grand-niece who follows in her footsteps, using her cookbook and continuing a tradition quite different from the one her great-grandmother tried to impose.