Like Water for Chocolate is the debut novel of Laura Esquivel, published in Mexico in 1989 and then translated into English by Carol and Thomas Christensen. Esquivel has sold over four million copies of the novel worldwide. She is a novelist and active politician serving in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies. She collaborated with her husband at the time to adapt the novel into a film in 1992, which was then nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film. Combining genre elements of romance and magical realism, the novel tells the story of Tita De la Garza’s quest to regain her lost love while fighting cultural and familial forces set on traditional femininity.

Content Warning: Like Water for Chocolate contains sensitive material such as depictions of physical abuse and sexual assault.

Plot Summary

Like Water for Chocolate contains 12 chapters, one for each month of the year, though the timeline spans several decades. Esquivel frames each month with a family recipe, which is worked into the chapter’s plot or themes. The novel is set in a northern Mexican village near the border during the Mexican Revolution, which took place in 1910-1920.

Josefita “Tita” De la Garza is born crying as her mother chops onions in the kitchen of their family ranch in Mexico. Tita’s father dies of a heart attack just after her birth and her mother, Mama Elena, cannot nurse, Tita is charged to Nacha, the family’s octogenarian cook. Nacha nourishes Tita with gruel and tea but also instills in the child a love of cooking. Tita displays a talent for culinary arts from an early age and soon finds the kitchen a place of refuge from Mama Elena’s temperamental moods. At 16, Tita falls in love with her neighbor, Pedro, but when he asks for her hand in marriage, Mama Elena forbids it, claiming Tita must fulfill the family tradition of the youngest daughter staying home and caring for her mother. Mama Elena offers Tita’s oldest sister, Rosaura, for Pedro to marry instead. Pedro accepts, claiming he did so to remain close to Tita. Wracked with grief over her sister’s betrayal, Tita weeps while she prepares the wedding feast. As the guests eat, a strange feeling comes over them, as each person is gripped by sadness over a lost love. The sadness turns to nausea and many guests, including Rosaura, become violently ill. Unaffected by her own magical cooking, Tita returns home to find Nacha dead from grief over her lost fiancé.

Tita continues to live on the ranch, cooking for the family and caring for her mother. Her only friend is the house cleaner Chencha. Pedro has come to live at the ranch, and the impossibility of his and Tita’s relationship while remaining in close proximity only intensifies their passion for each other. When Tita becomes the head chef, Pedro presents her with roses. Mama Elena orders Tita to dispose of the flowers, but she instead uses the petals in a quail recipe. The delectable dish, infused with Tita’s attraction to Pedro, causes everyone at the table to become aroused—especially Tita’s middle sister Gertrudis. Gertrudis hastily leaves the table to take a shower, but the heat from her body sets the stall aflame. As the scent of roses and desire wafts over the countryside embroiled in the Mexican Revolution, a young soldier named Juan Alejandrez catches the scent and rides to the ranch. Gertrudis runs naked from the shower and rides off with Juan in a heat of passion. Unable to quench her desire with the soldier, she enters a brothel and becomes a sex worker. Mama Elena disowns her daughter, forbidding even mentions of her name.

After a difficult delivery, Rosaura gives birth to a son named Roberto. The town doctor, Dr. John Brown, attends to her and falls in love with Tita. Rosaura cannot produce milk, so Tita takes Roberto into her care and is magically able to nurse him. Rosaura resents her sister’s ability to feed the baby, but the miraculous event further endears Tita to Pedro. Sensing the pair’s attraction, Mama Elena sends the family to San Antonio and Tita falls into a deep depression without Roberto and Pedro near. As the rebellion moves closer to the ranch, rebel troops arrive and take most of the family’s food; Juan, Gertrudis’s lover, leads the troops. Chencha brings word from San Antonio that Roberto has died from malnutrition. A distraught Tita takes refuge in the dovecote, and Mama Elena beats her and locks her in as punishment for what she sees as needless grief. After several days of keeping Tita locked away with the birds, Mama Elena sends for Dr. John Brown to take her daughter to an asylum; he brings her to his home to recuperate instead. While in John’s home, Tita sees visions of his grandmother, Morning Light, but does not speak for many months. John teaches her about his scientific research and aids in healing her body and soul. Chencha visits with a healing soup, and Tita resumes speaking.

Chencha returns home, and rebels raid the ranch again. This time, the troops violently attack, raping Chencha and leaving Mama Elena paralyzed. Tita must return to the ranch to care for her mother. Before Tita leaves, John proposes marriage and she accepts. Mama Elena refuses to eat Tita’s food, claiming she poisoned it. After overdosing on an emetic, Mama Elena dies, finally freeing Tita of the family curse. However, Tita stays at the ranch to help Chencha heal from the trauma of her assault. Chencha eventually finds a loving husband and begins a new life in town. While preparing for her mother’s funeral, Tita discovers a hidden box of letters revealing Mama Elena had a secret lover, Gertrudis’s biological father. Rosaura and Pedro attend the funeral, and Tita learns Rosaura is pregnant with another child.

Rosaura gives birth to a baby girl named Esperanza, but the birth leaves her unable to bear more children. She develops a severe gastrointestinal disorder. Pedro continues to lust after Tita, but she tries to direct her love toward John, now her fiancé. In the end, the pair consummate their love and Tita fears she might be pregnant. Gertrudis triumphantly returns home as a general in the army and brings her troops with her. Mama Elena’s ghost haunts Tita, shaming her for her affair with Pedro. When Tita banishes the ghost, she begins to menstruate and she knows she is not pregnant. Meanwhile, Mama Elena’s ghost sparks a fire, leaving Pedro severely burned. When John comes to tend to Pedro’s wounds, Tita tells him about the affair and ends their engagement, despite John’s offer to forgive her. Tita and Rosaura argue over Esperanza, as the latter wants to raise her daughter to care for her in old age, as Tita was expected to do for Mama Elena. Rosaura eventually dies from her health condition.

Two decades years later, John’s son Alex and Esperanza prepare to wed. Tita prepares food along with Chencha, who has returned to the ranch with her husband. Tita’s food stirs passion in everyone at the reception, and Pedro finally proposes marriage. As they freely consummate their love, Pedro dies, and Tita does not wish to live without him. She swallows candles and allows the flame of passion to consume her and reunite her with Pedro in paradise. The couple’s passionate love explodes into a volcano, consuming the ranch and leaving nothing but a cookbook full of Tita’s magical recipes. Esperanza’s future daughter reveals herself as the narrator and keeper of the cookbook.