Blog Entry #5

As demonstrated in this film, the role of food is not only to reflect on the culture and ethnical backgrounds of those preparing it (i.e. Tita and her family), but also allows one to showcase their own personal identity into the food that they are making. In the film Like Water for Chocolate, the foods themselves have several cultural and national identities, both in the final food product and the ingredients that go into it. Most of the foods cooked in this film have "imported" ingredients, that is to say ingredients that come from other countries to add extra flavor and perhaps even enhance the quality of the food. For example, one of the foods mentioned in the article and from the original novel, Christmas cakes called "tortas de Navidad", is cooked with American ingredients (i.e. chili), thereby crossing both the traditional Mexican taste and American flavors together. In the film however, some of the food cooked maintains the Mexican identity shared by Tita and the other characters. While Tita and her mother are preparing food together (the only time when they are seen doing this), the two are preparing a European food with their own Mexican flavors and spices, adding their own Mexican identity into a foreign food.

Along with the change of food's national identity, Like Water for Chocolate also allows the primary preparer of the food, Tita, to not only add cultural flavors, but add her own personal flavors and identity into the food, sometimes by accident. While preparing the wedding cake for Pedro and Rosaura, an upset Tita begins crying and one of her tears falls into the cake batter that she and Nacha are preparing. As a result, the wedding guests become sad themselves after eating the cake. In addition to this, Tita also put rose petals (representing sensuality) into one of the meals that she prepared for her family, which in turn caused Gertrudis to become filled with passion and run away with Juan. Both of these instances show how Tita is not just able to mix flavors and cultures into the food that she cooks, but she is also able to add her own emotions into the food, having an adverse effect on those who consume it and causing them to feel Tita's emotions as well. Due to this, the meals prepared by Tita (as she is the main cook seen in this film) not only maintain their own national and cultural identity, but also cause each food to develop a personal identity, as Tita puts a little bit of her own into each bite.

(L-R): The book cover of Like Water for Chocolate & its film adaptation