Entry 5

The film Como Agua para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) is a frame story about a girl, Tita, who is forced to never marry or have children in order to take care of her mother, Mamá Elena. Tita uses the kitchen in the house as her safe haven and a place to express her creativity and emotion, something Mamá Elena doesn’t allow. As a result of Tita being in the kitchen for most of the time, we can see how the food in the movie is shaped by cultural influences, and how the food shapes the characters’ personalities in the movie. 

Looking at the main character, Tita, the food that she cooks consistently reveals how she is a passionate and emotional person. Throughout the movie we see her pouring her emotions into what she cooks, and this often manifests in the people around her feeling what she feels as they eat her food. The first example of this is when she makes a cake for her sister’s (Rosaura) wedding, she is crying into the cake batter because her sister is marrying her true love. The same sadness, heartache, and sickness sweeps over the attendees of the wedding. First, we see them start to cry, then we see Mamá Elena longing her true love, and it ends in the rest of the wedding guests becoming sick. Another notable scene is when Tita starts to use cooking to send a message to Pedro, her true love. The passion that Tita puts into making quail in rose petal sauce is also manifested in everyone else eating, namely her sister Gertrudis who runs off naked with a man after eating the food. 

The food in this movie shows a blending of two different cultures, Native and European, as that is what Mexican culture is, an amalgamation of the two different cultures together. This is seen as Tita consistently takes cooking advice from the Native servant Nacha, blending that in with European recipes. Also, when Tita cooks recipes that require different ingredients when made in Europe, she improvises when she cooks to make something entirely new or different. 

The food in the movie also reveals the nature of other characters in the movie, such as Mamá Elena and Tita’s sister Rosaura. When it comes to Mamá Elena we can see how controlling she is, and how dispassionate of a person she is. She sees cooking as a chore, not an enjoyable activity, and she finds something wrong with everything Tita cooks throughout the movie, finding things too spicy or not spicy enough. When she is seen cooking with Tita we can get a proper idea of how cruel she truly is. Mamá Elena gets upset at Tita for crying over the death of her nephew, even hitting her while they are making the food together. Rosaura, unlike her sister, doesn’t have a passion for cooking, making everyone sick when she tried for the first time. Showing how uncaring she is in comparison to her younger sister. Rosaura can’t digest food at all, and this reveals how she is cruel just like her mother and cannot handle the truth of the situation she put herself in, that Pedro and Tita still have feelings for each other.  

Overall, the food reveals a lot about the culture and characters. Showing the audience a blending of cultures, Native and European. Also showing us who the different characters are through their relationship with food and cooking.