Food: A Gateway to Happiness and Pleasant Memories Food is the bridge that ties emotional memories into reality, helping individuals escape the atrocities of life. Food can unite individuals with memories linked from their childhood or home. The association of food as a comforting haven from reality is represented in two distinct literary texts. One of the literary sources is a novel, Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, which details different relationships within a dynamic family that ultimately highlights Tita’s need for preparing food, as a way to channel her emotions and find some enjoyment in her depressing life. The other text is a short story called “Indian Takeout” by Jhumpa Lahiri, which illustrates a story of two parents
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For Tita, preparing and serving food has always been a pleasure for her, as the rest of her life has been marked with pain. Her association with food is an escape from her daily miseries. “Likewise, for Tita the joy of living was wrapped up in the delights of food. It wasn’t easy for a person whose knowledge of life was based on the kitchen to comprehend the outside world” (Esquivel 7). Tita’s exuberance in life is confined to her kitchen, which is the only place she can express her emotions without being judged or punished. "...whereas everything on the kitchen side of that door...was completely hers - it was Tita's realm" (Esquivel 7). Even though Tita didn’t have control over her life, she was able to have control over the kitchen. Since Tita’s job, as the youngest daughter, is to take care of her mom until she dies, she cannot marry unlike her sisters. Unwillingly devoting the rest of her life to her mother’s care, Tita is deprived of the happiness that she seeks from life, such as marrying her lover Pedro. Therefore, she looks at the kitchen as a way to relieve stress from her problems, and to vent out all her emotions. Overall, food has the ability to bring joy for people in different situations and it also has the power to link different emotions with memories, that correspond to certain incidents in these characters’
For Tita, preparing and serving food has always been a pleasure for her, as the rest of her life has been marked with pain. Her association with food is an escape from her daily miseries. “Likewise, for Tita the joy of living was wrapped up in the delights of food. It wasn’t easy for a person whose knowledge of life was based on the kitchen to comprehend the outside world” (Esquivel 7). Tita’s exuberance in life is confined to her kitchen, which is the only place she can express her emotions without being judged or punished. "...whereas everything on the kitchen side of that door...was completely hers - it was Tita's realm" (Esquivel 7). Even though Tita didn’t have control over her life, she was able to have control over the kitchen. Since Tita’s job, as the youngest daughter, is to take care of her mom until she dies, she cannot marry unlike her sisters. Unwillingly devoting the rest of her life to her mother’s care, Tita is deprived of the happiness that she seeks from life, such as marrying her lover Pedro. Therefore, she looks at the kitchen as a way to relieve stress from her problems, and to vent out all her emotions. Overall, food has the ability to bring joy for people in different situations and it also has the power to link different emotions with memories, that correspond to certain incidents in these characters’