ESQUIVEL, Laura - Like Water for Chocolate (Spanish: Como agua para chocolate)

Like Water for Chocolate (Spanish: Como agua para chocolate)

by Laura Esquivel

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

It would be nice if she could let that genius know about one little flaw in this perfect plan for taking care of women in their old age. If Tita couldn't marry and have children who would take care of her when she got old?

Pg. 11

How strange that Nacha, who is quite hard of hearing by that time, should have claimed to have heard this conversation.

Pg. 15

Perhaps not you heard what everyone else was afraid to say.

Pg. 15

She started to eat the Christmas Roll Nacha had left out on her bureau, along with a glass of milk; this remedy had proven effective many times. Nacha, with all her experience, knew that for Tita there was no pain that wouldn't disappear if she ate a delicious Christmas Roll. But this time it didn't work.

Pg. 19

Rosaura and Nacha had never been close.

Pg. 30

And so, arms around each other, Nacha and Tita wept until there were no more tears in Tita's eyes. Then she cried without tears, which is said to hurt even more,

Pg. 30

This Chinaman was a crafty fellow: he accepted notes issued by the revolutionary army in the North as payment for the merchandise is sold in the capital, even though the notes were worthless and not negotiable there. Naturally when he took these notes in payment, it was at a fraction of their value, but then he took them to the North, where they were worth their full value, and bought goods with them.

In the north he accepted the notes issued in the capital, at low value, of course, and so we spent the entire revolution, until he wound up a millionaire.

Pg. 32

Only the pan knows how the boiling soup feels, but I know how you feel, so stop crying, you're getting the meringue watery, and it won't set up properly - go now, go.

Pg. 35

She was aware that she, not her sister Rosaura, was the center of attention. The wedding guess we're not just performing a social, the wedding guess we're not just performing a social act, they wanted to observe her suffering, but she wouldn't give them that satisfaction. No. She heard, as she passed, The whispers in the church, and she felt each comment like a stab in her back.

Pg. 36

Tita was the last link in a chain of cooks who had been passing culinary secrets from generation to generation since ancient times, and she was considered the finest exponent of the marvelous art of cooking.

Pg. 48

All at once she seemed to hear Nacha's voice dictating a recipe, a prehispanic recipe involving rose petals.

Pg. 49

Mama Elena was merciless, killing with a single blow. But then again not always. For Tita she had made an exception, she had been killing her a little at a time since she was a child, and she still hadn't quite finished her off.

Pg. 49

If Pedro had asked Tita to run away with him, she wouldn't have hesitated for a moment, but it didn't.

Pg. 56

I have a very good aim and a very bad temper, Captain. The next shot is for you, and I assure you that I can shoot you before they can kill me, so it would be best for us to respect each other. If we die no one will miss me very much, but won't the nation mourn your loss?

Pg. 90

The chickens are filled with ground wheat or oats and then placed, feathers and all, into a glazed earthenware pot. The pot is covered tightly using a narrow strip of cloth; that way the meat can be kept for more than a week. It had been a common practice on the ranch since ancient times, when they had to preserve animals after  a hunting party.

Pg. 92

She set her down in front of the stone metate and set her to grinding the spices with the chiles.

Pg. 93

Unquestionably, I came to dividing, dismantling, dismembering, desolating, detaching, dispossessing, destroying, or dominating, Mama Elena was a pro.

Pg. 97

In this case, the oxygen, for example, we come from the breath of the person you love; a candle could be any kind of food, music, caress, word, horse sound that engenders the explosion that lights one of the matches.

Pg.115

She envied Tita for having the courage to refuse to go back to the ranch. She wished she could do the same, but she didn't dare. She'd heard talk since she was a child about the bad things that happen to women who disobey their parents and masters and leave the house.

Pg. 127

And although it might have seemed she would benefit from not having to do any other work then cooking and serving my Nama Elena, it wasn't so. At first she received the news with pleasure, but once the shouts and reproaches started, she realized that you can't have a slice without paying for the loaf.

Pg. 133

They all laughed at that, but when Rosaura explained to Alex that he couldn't because this little girl was just to take care of her until the day she died, Tita felt her hair stand on end.

Pg. 150

When the talk turns to eating, a subject of the greatest importance, Only fools and sick men don't give it the attention it deserves.

Pg. 156

Ingredients for the chocolate

2 pounds Soconusco chocolate beans

2 pounds Maracaibo chocolate beans

2 pounds Caracas chocolate beans

4 to 6 pounds sugar, to taste

Pg. 164

It's very important to pay attention to this sort of detail, since the goodness of the chocolate depends on three things, namely: that the chocolate beans used are good and without defect, that you mix several different types of beans to make the chocolate, and, finally, the amount of toasting.

Pg. 165

While Tita was forming the squares, she mourned for the Three Kings' days of her childhood, when she didn't have such serious problems. Our biggest worry then was that the Magi never brought her what she asked for, but instead what Mama Elena thought best for her.

Pg. 167

It was called a little movie, because it was an apparatus for projecting images on the wall using a petroleum lamp as a light source, producing an effect like a movie; but its real name was "zoetrope."

Pg. 167

Tita began the Three Kings' Day bread at last.

Ingredients

30 grams fresh yeast

1 1/2 kilos flour

8 eggs

1 Tablespoon salt

2 Tablespoons orange-blossom water

1 1/2 cups milk

300 grams sugar

300 grams butter

250 grams candied fruit

2 porcelain doll

Pg. 168

She didn't know how she would react to what "they" would say if Pedro left her, she couldn't stand it. Her only consolation was that at least she had her daughter Esperanza, who was obliged to stay with her forever.

Pg. 171

The commission had been earned by sheer hard work, she fought like mad on the field of battle. Leadership was in her blood, and once she joined the army, she began a rapid ascent through powerful positions until she arrived at the top;

Pg. 178

That was chocolate prepared like it used to be. Eyes closed, Gertrudis offered up a silent prayer, asking that Tita be granted many more years in which to prepare the family recipes. Neither she nor Rosaura knew how to make them; when Tita died, her family's past would die with her.

Pg. 179

Much to her surprise she found that the beans still weren't done, despite the hours they had been cooking. Something strange was going on. Tita remembered that Nacha had always said that when people argue while preparing tamales, the tamales won't get cooked. They can be heated day after day and still stay raw, because the tamales are angry. In a case like that, you have to sing to them, which makes them happy; then they'll cook.

Pg. 219