SOURCE: “A Novel Recipe for Sensuality and Romance,” in Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1992, section 14, p. 8.

In the following review, Polk discusses the role of food and food preparation in Like Water for Chocolate.

Printed on the menu of the diner where I used to have lunch was the message, “Eating is Important,” another of those little truths we often take for granted. But after reading the Mexican screenwriter Laura Esquivel’s funny, raunchy, sensual and hugely romantic first novel, Like Water for Chocolate, it’s obvious we’re not just dealing with another everyday fact of life. Eating, we discover, is more than important, it’s decisive, almost as decisive as preparing the meal.

We are on the De la Garza ranch at the time of the Mexican Revolution. Tita, the youngest of the three daughters of the tyrannical Emma Elena, is destined from birth to have a special...