Review of Like Water for Chocolate (1992) by Edith N — 25 Oct 2010

Sublimated Desire.

The water, you see, is boiling. The little cake of chocolate and spices will be whipped into it--Mexican hot chocolate is a very different thing from packets of Swiss Miss, but Americans mix those packets with boiling water as well. (Actually, for preference, I make the packet into a paste with some milk and then add the water.) This is not merely hot, the vague modern American equivalent to this expression. Try, instead, the Southern "hot and bothered." The imagery is more precise. Yes, the heat is important. Sexual desire can actually make you feel hot flashes. I would say it often does. However, the expression is about more than just that. It's about the restlessness which can accompany the mere heat. I only really know idiom in one language with bits and pieces from others, but it would not surprise me to find out that the idea of being moved by something is universal.

Tita (Edurne Ballesteros, then Lumi Cavazos) is the youngest daughter of Mamá Elena (Regina Torné) and a man who doesn't seem to have a name--Wikipedia doesn't think I want to know, apparently. Anyway, at a party, the father finds out that his middle daughter, Gertrudis (Natalia De la Fuente, then Beatriz Elías, then Claudette Maillé), is probably the daughter of a mulatto ranch hand Elena had an affair with years earlier. He then keels over dead. Years later, Pedro Muzquiz (Marco Leonardi) comes to Mamá Elena to ask for Tita's hand in marriage. Mamá Elena informs him that, as family tradition declares, Tita must never marry. It is her duty to care for Mamá Elena, which apparently cannot be done by a married woman. There is no speculation about what would happen had she borne nothing but sons. Anyway, Pedro agrees to marry Rosaura (Melisa Mares, then Gabriela Canudas, then Yareli Arizmendi)--so he can live close to Tita. She becames the ranch cook and cares for her mother; Gertrudis runs away to join the revolutionaries.

I have now put the book on this on order at the library, because I want to read the recipes. No, I have no intention of making the quail in rose sauce that so, um, overpowered Gertrudis that it set the shower house on fire and caused her to run naked toward I don't know where until she was taken up into the saddle of a revolutionary. I don't know where I'd buy quail, and the idea of a rose sauce is not terribly pleasant to me. However, I have always been fascinated by cookbooks. Last year, Graham got me [i]Good Eats: The Early Years[/i] for my birthday, and he wanted to know why he was doing this, because I'd never make anything in it. I informed him that this was not true, and even if it were, it was not the point. I have dozens of cookbooks, and they fascinate me. It is also true that I have myself cooked when I was trying to get out from under powerful emotions, and not just by thumping my frustration into bread dough.

I'm not sure why Rosaura thinks marrying Pedro is a good idea. I get Pedro's belief that it will help him be close to Tita, and I get that he's willing to ignore how much this would hurt Rosaura. But why did she go along with it? It's true that you can't really go against Mamá Elena, but I never felt she was forced into the marriage. I never even really felt she was pressured into it. I'm not sure what advantage it conferred on the family. Later in the story, she tells Tita that Pedro may love Tita, but Rosaura is the wife. However, given that he won't go near her, I don't see this as much of an advantage, especially given that it seems common knowledge that Tita and Pedro love each other, and it was only shrewish Mamá Elena who kept them apart. When Tita is finally to be permitted to marry the American Doctor John Brown (Mario Iván Martínez), even he knows that, when she doesn't go through with it, it's because she's still in love with Pedro. He's not happy, but he's resigned to it.

And, of course, the reason she's allowed to marry him is that her mother is dead and doesn't need looking after anymore. Even there, the impression is kind of "a doctor in the family would look after her!" Really, it's a horrible tradition. If it were that the mother would go live with the daughter and her husband, or that the daughter and her husband will come and live with her, that would be one thing. However, the family tradition seems to be that the youngest daughter doesn't deserve happiness. Whatever she wants isn't as important as doing everything [i]her mother[/i] wants until the day her mother dies. Rosaura declares it over Esperanza (Sandra Arau) when her daughter is still in the cradle. However, you can tell from the moment Tita refuses to have the girl named after her that she isn't going to stand for it. Not only does she refuse to have the daughter as her namesake, she suggests the name Esperanza in the first place. And as anyone with rudimentary Spanish or an awareness of invented languages knows, "[i]esperanza[/i]" means "hope.".