Sunday, January 9, 2011

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel

This quick read is a romantic fable centered around a traditional Mexican family. Fables are generally great exaggerations that are meant to tell how things come to be. This is no exception.

Tita, the youngest daughter of Mama Elena, is destined to never marry and to take care of her mother until she dies. This is the tradition of the family. Tita ends up finding love in Pedro, but is forbidden to marry him. Pedro instead marries Tita's older sister so he can stay close. A complicated mess, but somehow it works out.

Tita is a gifted cook and, through some fable-y magic, imbues her moods into her cooking. When she is happy and passionate, her food makes everyone passionate. When she is sad, everyone eating her food ends up crying and upset.

This isn't the type of book I normally enjoy and while it was entertaining, it's not in my top books. I appreciate the recipes given but they appeared right in the middle of the stories and just seemed odd.

1 comment:

Buffy said...

I'm a little embarrassed that I haven't managed to read this yet. I've had it at the bottom of my book shelf forever. You've just encouraged me to add it to my reading list.