Como Agua Para Chocolate

Superior Essays
Food plays a very important role in any society beyond sustaining life. It is a time for families to come together and often accompanies celebrations. Cooks are able to communicate with their audience through the favors they choose, the meals they prepare and the simple act of cooking for someone beyond ourselves. This common day event is truly explored in the two movies “Como Agua Para Chocolate” and “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.” Tita, the main character and cook of the movie “Como Agua Para Chocolate” and Chef Chu, who fills the same role in the film “Eat, Drink, Man, Woman” have very different uses and relationships with the food they cook. Tita, who is under the extreme control of her mother and familial traditions, is forced to remain unmarried …show more content…
Tita almost always uses her hands or earthy , wooden tools to mold the food the way she wants. By being in direct contact with the ingredients Tita is able to pour all of her emotions, whether it is love or sadness into the food. The wooden or clay utensils she uses sues are from the earth and hand crafted , meaning someone else put the same love and care into crafting the tools as Tita will do when she is cooking with them. This is the director’s way of reinforcing the idea of her being in contact with her emotions, which she is able to put into the food she is preparing. This is contrasted by Chu, who barely ever touches the food with his hands. Instead he uses many sharp, metal knives and equally cold utensils. These utensils are made by machines and are not earthy in any sense. Again, the preparation that went into making these mirrors that of the cook. There was no human emotion involved in making Chef Chu’s cooking tools, as they were made by the hundreds in a large factory. This mirrors the amount of himself Chef Chu puts into his cooking, as he does not insert any of his feelings into the food he prepares, just as the knifes he works with were made without care. “Tita”Thie again shows that Chef Chu does not have the same emotional connection with food as Tita does. He does not express himself in his food, therefore he can uses use these harsh, cold utensils while cooking as they do not stop him from putting his feelings into his cooking, as it would for

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