Like Water for Chocolate Cooking as a Remedy

Babies born on kitchen tables, quail and rose petals burning up sexual appetites, ox-tail soup for the mommy-battered soul; cooking and food is so much more than a remedy, so much more than a theme. It's a way to gather people together, to recall lost loves and childhood sweethearts. Tita knows better than anyone in the novel how much food can mean to a person, especially for someone who wants to be free and can't be.

Questions About Cooking as a Remedy

1. Do you think cooking allows Tita to find freedom on the ranch? Is she controlled by anybody in the kitchen?
2. What power does cooking have over Tita? Over the people who eat her dishes?
3. Which dish do you think has the most power in the novel and why?
4. Do you think chapter 6 is considered cooking? Is John also a sort of healer?

Chew on This

For Tita, violence is not a form of communication but cooking is.

Cookbooks are a form of literature and should be read and shared within families.