It’s love at first sight, for both of them, but Mama Elena isn’t having a bar of it. Tita’s fine with this, until she meets the hunk-a-spunk Pedro. As the youngest, she is forbidden – by long-standing family tradition – from marrying, so that she can stay home and care for her mother for the rest of her life. Tita is the star of Like Water For Chocolate, though her supporting cast is also stellar. They are youngest daughter Tita’s favourite dish. It begins in January with a recipe for Christmas Rolls (not one of the more delicious offerings: sardines, chorizo, and chiles serranos? Ho, ho, no!). The family legend is bolstered in the South American style of magical realism, where tears can turn into rivers and bitterness alone can kill. They live on a ranch in Mexico, near the U.S. The story is a bizarre history of sorts, of the De La Garzas: Mama Elena (husband deceased), her daughters (Gertrudis, Rosarua, and Tita), the cook (Nacha), and the maid (Chencha), all narrated by Tita’s grand-niece sometime in an unspecified future.
Hot tip: make sure you’re not hungry when you pick this one up, because the recipes and cooking chat will have you drooling! Even though the timeline of the story is far longer than a year, it’s divided into twelve months, each preceded by a recipe that the characters cook in the following chapter. The front cover of Like Water For Chocolate promises “a novel in monthly instalments with recipes, romances and home remedies” – and that’s exactly what you get. (And, like magic for bloggers, if you use an affiliate link on this page to do so, I’ll earn a small commission!)
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