Like Water For Chocolate Chapter 4

Characters: Tita, Mama Elena, Rosaura, Pedro, Roberto (Pedro and Rosaura’s son), Chencha, John Brown (the doctor)

The chapter’s recipe is Turkey mole with almonds and sesame seeds

The chapter switches from location to location, mostly taking place in the kitchen in Mama Elena’s ranch before switching to a church at the end of the chapter.

The chapter begins with Tita grinding the almonds for the dish, making sure to go into great detail about the erotic position she is in while doing it. Pedro walks into the kitchen, catching sight of Tita’s breasts for the very first time, and the two share a look of intimate love. When Pedro leaves the kitchen Tita can’t stop thinking about the intense emotions she’s experiencing, feeling that they rekindled her hopes that Pedro still loves her as much as she loves him. It is explained that she felt she had done something wrong when Pedro stopped praising her cooking, and that somehow, he didn’t love her anymore; when in reality, Mama Elena told Pedro to stop praising the dishes since it was making Rosaura upset. Every night, after continuing to make the bedspread, Tita comes up with new and better recipes to make for everyone in the household. At some point Rosaura goes into labor and Tita is the only one that can tend to her since Pedro got captured by federals while trying to find a doctor, and Mama Elena and Chencha had to stay with some people since guns were firing in the streets. Tita manages to deliver the child successfully (with help from Nacha’s spirit) and she ends up getting attached to it. Mama Elena calls a doctor to help Rosaura recover since the labor almost killed her, and the doctor ends up getting attracted to Tita, not knowing that she will never be able to marry, and that she still loves Pedro. Since Rosaura is unable to produce milk for the child, a wet nurse is called, but she ends up getting gunned down on the streets; so the task falls to Tita. She is able to feed the child with breast milk from herself, due to the overwhelming urge to feed the child so that it will stop crying; Pedro sees this but pays it no mind, and she continues to feed the child this way. The time to baptize the child comes around, and Mama Elena is starting to notices the going ons between Pedro and Tita; she confides in a priest in an idea to send him, Rosaura, and their kid away to stay with some family so that Rosaura will get the proper healing she needs, even though we all know that’s not the case. Tita overhears this and is depressed by the news.

-Ariana