FOOD AND CULTURAL CONCERNS: AN ALEPHIC READING OF LAURA ESQUIVEL’S LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE
FOOD AND CULTURAL CONCERNS: AN ALEPHIC READING OF LAURA ESQUIVEL’S LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE

Summary/Abstract: If one adheres to the ethno-methodologically oriented definitions of gender studies, the doing gender, becomes one of the key concepts of the Alephic approach I use as a possible methodology for reading Laura Esquivel’s novel, Like Water for Chocolate: a Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies (the original title: Como agua para chocolate: novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores y remedios caseros), seen here as an invitation to the ancient principle of feminine duties linked to the sacred fire (kitchen) that prepares sacred food. My demonstration may seem to be in fact antifeminist, as I am basically pleading for a return to innocence, to that primordial space in which women are dedicating their time, creativity and inspiration to cooking, as it is seen in the wonderful novel written by the Mexican writer. It is in fact a reconsideration of the primordial women gestures of alimenting their communities. I agree on the fact that love through food can develop a parallel discourse, a mystical communicational system known by the preparer of the food and the eater. This system replaces words by flavors, sounds by tastes, books by meals. In this scenario, women aren’t slaves of the kitchen, but pure deities, they are responsible not only of the survival of the group that needs to eat, but also of their happiness and joy and pleasure they all get from the alimentation.

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