Like Water for Chocolate: Magic and Enchantment
             Like Water for Chocolate, by Laura Esquivel, relates a "Cinderella-like story" of a young woman, growing up during the Mexican Revolution whose fate is dictated by her oppressive, overbearing mother. Tita, the heroine of the story, lives with her mother, Mama Elena, and two older sisters, Rosaura and Gertrudis. As the youngest daughter of the family, Tita, by long-standing tradition, can never marry; it is her responsibility to care for her mother into old age. To ensure Tita is well-groomed to eventually be her mothers care-giver, she is raised in the kitchen, working alongside Nacha, the family cook and housekeeper. Nacha becomes more a mother to Tita than Mama Elena. While working in the kitchen, Tita learns old recipes and the secrets of cooking. She eventually becomes a chef in her own right. Because she is able to establish a mystical connection between food and sexuality, Tita learns to communicate to Pedro through the very activity that imprisons her, cooking.
             As Tita blossoms into a beautiful young woman, she meets Pedro, a handsome local boy (10). They have a low-key relationship as Tita knows her mother will not approve. She falls in love with Pedro. Eventually, he asks for her hand in marriage, but Tita's tyrannical mother Elena refuses to allow them to marry (13). Instead she offers Pedro the hand of her eldest daughter Rosaura and he accepts (13). Tita is devastated as she sees this as disloyalty to the love they share. To add insult to injury, Elena orders Tita to prepare the wedding feast. As Tita's passion and soul become enraged by the marriage, so rightfully does she use her only method of self expression- cooking, to relay her pain while under Mama Elena's restricted household.
             Tita pours her heartbreak and anger into her cooking and as she prepares the wedding cake, her tears mix with the ingredients transforming the cake into something...