As the enigmatic narrator says in Como Agua Para Chocolate, “Just as a poet plays
with words, Tita juggled ingredients.” For Tita, cooking is more than a means to an
end. Cooking is an artform. And in Tita’s pitiable life as a mere servant to her
oppressive mother, cooking is her one and only means of expressing her emotions. 

The film is very literal in how it portrays Tita’s cooking as a channel for her
interiority. When Tita is heartbroken over her Roasura’s marriage Pedro and cries
into the wedding cake batter, the guests have an immediate and visceral reaction
wherein they all start crying and throwing up. When Tita concocts the “Quail in
Rose Petal Sauce” dish out of sheer passion and desire for Pedro, her eldest sister
Gertrudis is overtaken with sexual desire and, after the heat from her body literally
catches the showerhouse on fire, flees from the ranch naked on horseback. At the
wedding between Alex and Esperanza, Tita’s “Chiles en Nogada” is crafted with so
much love and joy that her emotions spill out into the guests. 

All of this is to suggest that food has an extraordinary power of the state of mind of
those who consume it. Even though at face value, Tita holds the least power of any
character in the film, her power to translate emotion into food makes her the single
most powerful character in Como Agua Para Chocolate. Tita’s entire identity is
centered around her ability to communicate through food - and it is this ability that
ultimately inspires her liberation from her mother. For Tita, the various dishes and
recipes of Como Agua Para Chocolate come to represent her hard-fought personal
identity. For the film’s narrator, Tita’s grand-niece, the recipes come to reflect her
identity as a Mexican and connect her to her family.

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