In Mexico, water was used instead of milk to make hot chocolate. The water is first heated to a boil, hot enough to easily melt the chocolate dipped in it. Similarly, in the film Like Water for Chocolate, the characters become heated and undertake seething actions that build up due to moments of excitement or passion. The story, however, centers on Tita De la Garza, the youngest daughter of a Mexican family and whose knowledge and understanding of life was limited by her life in the kitchen of the family ranch. As she was practically born and raised in the kitchen, her mother figure and culinary mentor Nacha taught her to become a very competent and talented cook. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay However, outside of cooking, she had virtually no freedom. Under pressure from her formidable mother Elena, Tita was forbidden from marrying and was forced to always stay with and take care of her mother. In Mama Elena's eyes, it was her youngest daughter's duty, while the other girls were expected to marry and continue the family lineage. Because Tita could not express what she was thinking as her mother would not allow it, food became her emotional outlet, leading people who consumed her food to have a sensual experience galvanized by such emotions. Two senses that had such an impact were Tita's pain and love. Throughout the film, family and freedom were two driving themes that were expressed deeply but also at odds with each other. Tita's expectations as the youngest daughter almost always limited her freedom to act and speak alone. Family is of course linked by marriage, blood or adoption, but usually by love expressed towards one another. As for the De la Garza family, “family” has been the main source of Tita’s pain and suffering. Tita was not allowed to marry or have a relationship motivated by philia, but that didn't stop her from falling in love with Pedro Muzquiz. Pedro loved Tita very much at first, but Mama Elena forbade them to marry and instead asked her eldest daughter Rosaura to marry Pedro. Although he only agreed to marry Rosaura to stay close to Tita, Tita still felt great pain from such grief. This emotion took over as she prepared the Chabela wedding cake for Pedro and Rosaura's wedding feast. Tita and Nacha shared the responsibility of cooking for the feast which required enormous quantities of food. Even though Tita was already grieving over her situation, Mama Elena disregarded her feelings and sternly ordered Tita to get over it and concentrate on cooking. Instead of showing the love or care expected of a typical family, her mother and older sister, who knew of Tita's love for Pedro but nonetheless agreed to take Pedro as her own husband, brought emotional pain to Tita. When Mama Elena falls asleep, leaving Tita and Nacha alone in the kitchen, Nacha urges Tita to vent her emotions now before the wedding. In the absence of her family, Tita finds the freedom to express herself, even if only for a moment. She ends up crying profusely, as her tears flow into the cake batter. The tears not only made the cake batter a little soggy, but also caused incessant vomiting and a terrible sense of loss among the wedding guests who ate a slice. Through cooking, which is the only freedom she hadreally to express herself, Tita, for a moment, clandestinely freed herself from her chains of family duties to let out the pain she felt deep in her heart. This freedom, or rather this desire for freedom, challenged Tita to express her feeling of love in atypical ways while fighting the boundaries placed around her. After the death of Mama Elena's husband, Juan De La Garza, Tita's fate was sealed and controlled by Mama Elena. However, cooking always became his medicine. She had to cook for others on several occasions, but she usually had the freedom to cook whatever she wanted. Mama Elena, however, tested an opportunity to curtail Tita's cooking freedom when Rosaura decided to cook for a meal, ultimately competing with Tita in front of Pedro. Although Rosaura's dishes caused everyone's stomach aches, Tita's cooking freedom could not be taken away from Tita. In Jon Holtzman's Remembering Bad Cooks: Sensuality, Memory, Personhood, he places particular emphasis on "the neglected area of ​​bad cooking and the kind of messages that an allegedly bad-tasting dish is supposed...to convey about the person who cooked it.” Rosaura's dishes were probably worse than what Tita usually cooks. This, however, presents Rosaura in a different, negative light: Rosaura is not a cook that the family can rely on, nor would she be able to provide hearty and delicious meals for the family that Rosaura and Pedro will soon start. . Conversely, this shines a much more positive light for Tita: everyone, including mom Elena, agrees that Tita is the talented cook of the family, and Pedro realizes this even more and therefore falls even more in love with Tita. Jon Holtzman's primary concern is to provoke "questions about how the sensuality of food serves to structure social relations and identities, particularly with regard to gender... In what ways does the sensuality of food shape- Is it the way we understand and remember those people who prepare food, the cooks? From the meal prepared by Rosaura, the sensuality of food greatly shapes the status of a cook. Because Rosaura cooked terribly, she lost the respect of those who ate because she was a woman who had no cooking skills. Because Tita clearly cooks much better and tastier meals, she is respected and designated as the official cook, even by those who don't want to admit it. For this family, a woman who knows how to cook can provide for the family, and if she cannot, then she is failing in her duties. While full responsibility for cooking falls to Tita, she is still able to retain a small amount of freedom. Every other part of Tita's life was under Mama Elena's domination, and even when Tita received roses from Pedro, Mama Elena would immediately tell her to get rid of them, not giving Tita the time of day to enjoy this sweet gesture. Mom Elena doesn't see Tita as a whole person but rather as a girl whose goal in life is simply to take care of herself. In The Substance of Kinship and the Heat of the Hearth: Feeding, Personhood, and Relatedness Among Malays in Pulau Langkawi by Janet Carsten, she studies "how, for the Malays on the island of Langkawi, to feed themselves (in the sense of receiving as well as giving"). food) is a vital element in the long process of becoming a person and participating fully in social relationships” (Carsten, page 223). Interestingly, Tita uses cooking to actually be a person.-104438642