Reflection on Like Water for Chocolate (1992)

I had started watching "The Cook, the Thief" et al., but there was an actual (accidental?) dog fight in the foreground of the theatrical opening scene, so I just couldn't do it. There were tons of dogs roaming the set and things were a bit chaotic...I am sure the dogs ended up being fine, but, no.

On to "Como agua para chocolate":
Food is connected to emotion from the outset: a female narrator (we realize later she is Esperanza's daughter) is chopping onions and recounting the story of a baby (Tita) born in a stream of tears. The narrator says the problem with crying when chopping onions is that sometimes you can't stop. After the tears from Tita's birth have dried, the family sweeps up 40 lbs of salt, which they use for cooking. Food (onion) thus gives emotion and life, and what is excreted (tears) is reabsorbed (salt used in cooking).

Food is also tied to care and comfort. Tita grows up warm and safe in Nacha's kitchen, learning the intricate method and ritual of cooking. Later, when Tita is despondent over Pedro's marrying her sister Rosaura, Nacha brings a tray of food to her bedside, telling Tita that eating will make her sorrow less. We can all relate to the comfort that food can provide when we are upset. 

Food becomes a method of control when Tita's mother gives her the responsibility of cooking for Pedro and Rosaura's wedding banquet. Tita cries bitterly into the cake batter, transferring her emotional state to the guests, who become miserable and sickened, vomiting in tandem. Later, emotions are transferred again when Tita lovingly makes quail with rose petals for the family -- she penetrates Pedro's body with her love, renders her sister Gertrudis orgasmic, and her mother yearning for a lost love. Only her sister Rosaura is rendered ill by the commutation of Tita's love through food. Twenty-two years later, Esperanza's wedding banquet food is made with love, and that love is conveyed through the food to all the guests, who are galvanized to make love.

When Tita's mother forcefully breaks a watermelon on the table, it is a brutal action, like the breaking open of a body. The girls comment that she is the only person with the strength to break a watermelon. The action is symbolic of Tita's mother breaking her daughters' spirit out of selfishness. 

Food as a conduit of life, love, and comfort is reinforced when Pedro and Rosaura's son dies when separated from Tita, who had been secretly breast-feeding him. The rumor is that everything he ate made him sick. Rosaura later begs Tita to help her win Pedro back; Tita reassures her that a good diet will help her lose weight and get rid of her gas and bad breath. And Gertrudis comments that revolution wold not be so bad if one could go home to have dinner every night.

The film concludes with the narrator preparing a recipe that has been passed down through the women in her family. We see the specters of her mother Esperanza and her great-aunt Tita looking over her as she lovingly prepares a meal. The spirit of the women live on through the hand preparation of family recipes. Food is again a method of communication, and a way to honor and commune with the past.

P.S. Not sure why the film is called "Like Water for Chocolate". Hot chocolate is mentioned only by Gertrudis when she visits the ranch. Looking online, various sources say that hot chocolate is made with water rather than milk in Mexico, and thus water could be thought of as transforming chocolate. Or perhaps water is Rosaura and chocolate is Tita, and Pedro must select water rather than delicious chocolate?