Recommended Reading: Like Water For Chocolate

The setting for this irresistible story is Mexico. Tita is the youngest daughter of the De la Garza family, and as such it is her duty to stay at home and look after her mother - the formidable matriarch, Mama Elena - until her death. Forbidden to marry, Tita has to stand by and watch her childhood sweetheart, Pedro, marry her older sister, Rosaura.

Tita’s domain is the kitchen. From the womb, she has responded to the smells and sensations of Mexican cooking. Her relationship with the food she cooks is very special – even magical. When Tita is happy, those who eat her meals are filled with contentment and well being. But when Tita is sad, woe betide those who taste her food.

Each chapter in this unusual book begins with a new month and a different recipe, interweaving the preparation of the food with the events in Tita’s life. If you’re looking for something to spice up your reading, you’ll find this book as addictive and pleasurable as the chocolate in the title. Expect a sensual, unpredictable, and on occasions, explosive read that will make your nostrils twitch and your mouth water in anticipation. You may not look at the preparation of food in the same light ever again!

Here are the opening paragraphs. If you want to read the whole first chapter, click here:

Take care to chop the onion fine. To keep from crying when you chop it (which is so annoying!), I suggest you place a little bit on your head. The trouble with crying over an onion is that once the chopping gets you started and the tears begin to well up, the next thing you know you just can’t stop. I don’t know whether that’s ever happened to you, but I have to confess it’s happened to me, many times. Mama used to say it was because I was especially sensitive to onions, like my great-aunt, Tita.

Tita was so sensitive to onions, any time they were being chopped, they say she would just cry and cry; when she was still in my great-grandmother’s belly her sobs were so loud that even Nacha, the cook, who was half-deaf, could hear them easily. Once her wailing got so violent that it brought on an early labor. And before my great-grandmother could let out a word or even a whimper, Tita made her entrance in this world prematurely, right there on the kitchen table amid the smells of simmering noodle soup, thyme, bay leaves, and cilantro, steamed milk, garlic, and, of course, onion.