Like Water for Chocolate, Book 2 of Angie and Christie's Literature and Blogging Project

I'll do my best not to gush over this one.


This was the most interesting melding of a recipe book and fiction i've ever read. It was 12 recipes accompanied by the story of the somewhat-supernatural events in the life of Tita De La Garza. Each story begins with a recipe, and unfolds during the directions to prepare it.


Tita was born to a woman, Mama Elena, who ruled her household with an iron fist. She was raised by the cook, Nacha, because Mama Elena couldn't breastfeed. Nacha raised Tita in the kitchen, passing on generations of recipes and general kitchen know-how, developing Tita into a marvelous cook in her own right.

Mama Elena had two other daughters before Tita, and it was Tita's fate, according to an ancient family tradition, never to marry and to stay with her mother to take care of her until she died.

Tita discovered this fate on the day her boyfriend, Pedro, came over to ask Mama Elena for her hand in marriage. Mama Elena instead offered her middle daughter, Rosaura, whom Pedro reluctantly accepted as his bride. "If i cannot marry the one i love, it is best to marry her sister, so that i can be near her always," he told his father, who chided him for his broken promise to Tita to love her forever.

Tita then proceeded to ruin her sister's wedding by cooking the wedding feast with tears and bitterness in her heart, which gave all of the guests a nasty case of food poisoning. Unfortunately, the feast also killed Nacha, who after eating the cake infused with Tita's tears, dies of the heartbreak Tita feels.

After that, unable to express her love any way except through the loving preparation of food, Tita and Pedro began their 22-year unconsummated love affair.

I loved this book. It had everything- food, romance, intrigue, unrequited love, prostitution, rebellious teenagers, and the purest form of hatred: the love of a daughter turned sour toward her overbearing, abusive mother.

The one thing i struggled with was the relationship between Pedro and Tita. After his marriage, Pedro continued to court Tita, when he should have released her to find her own happiness. She was never truly free to seek the love of someone who could love her back freely and openly, and the one time she did almost find that love, he treated her badly.

I disliked him for his hypocrisy. He couldn't bear the pain of seeing Tita with another man, though he had no problems with inflicting that very same pain on her by marrying her sister. I felt like if he couldn't bear to see her with someone else, he should've waited for Mama Elena to die.

I loved this book. You should read it.