Laura Esquivel: "Bittersweet Chocolate"
The book
Mexico, sometime in the last century. Pedro loves Tita. But as the youngest daughter, the 16-year-old is to remain unmarried, to later provide for her mother. This is what the Convention and the mother want. To remain close to Tita, Pedro decides to marry her older sister Rosaura. The family could be satisfied. But she did not expect Titas Dickskull? and her magical cooking skills. From now on, the beautiful cook puts all her love into the preparation of traditional dishes. And not only Pedro is still infatuated. The whole court gradually succumbs to Tita's magical cakes and stews. So her path to emancipation leads her to the place where her mother wanted to banish her: the kitchen.
Twelve chapters, twelve delicious recipes that contain the bittersweet taste of life. Easy, amusing? and very sensual.
The author
Laura Esquivel was born in 1950 in Mexico City. She studied drama and later wrote screenplays and poetry for children. Her first novel "Bittersweet Chocolate" appeared in 1989 and became a worldwide success. Laura Esquivel lives in Mexico.
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Sample "Bittersweet Chocolate"
January: Christmas tortas
Ingredients: 1 tin of sardines 1/2 kg of chorizo 1 onion oregano 1 tin of serrano peppers 10 small white baguette rolls
Preparation: The onion should be finely chopped. If you want to avoid tears in your eyes when cutting onions, it is advisable to place a small piece of onion on the top of your head. Not even the crying itself is so annoying, but that you can not stop as soon as you start hacking. I do not know if you've ever done so, anyway. Even countless times. Mama always said that this sensitivity to onions was inherited from my great aunt Tita.
Tita states that she reacted so violently to onions that she shed terrible tears in the body of my great-grandmother as soon as these onions chopped. Her cry was so loud that even Nacha, the cook of the house, could hear it effortlessly, and she was half deaf. One day Titas sobs increased so much that it prematurely started the birth. So it happened that? before my great-grandmother could even say piep? Tita was born head over heels, in the middle of the kitchen table, wrapped in the scent of noodle soup cooking on the stove, thyme, bay leaf, coriander, boiling milk, garlic and, of course, onions. It goes without saying that, under these circumstances, the famous pat on the buttocks was superfluous, Tita was already born crying, and perhaps also because she knew her oracle, that in this life she should not be married. Nacha said that Tita had literally been washed into the world by an incredible flow of tears that spilled over the table and the entire kitchen floor.
In the afternoon, when the shock was over and the sun's heat had dried the water, Nacha swept up the tears on the red kitchen tiles. With this salt she filled a five-kilo sack, from which one should use for a long time to cook. This strange birth led Tita to develop an inexhaustible love of cooking, spending most of her life practically from birth. Because she was not quite two days old when her father, my great-grandfather, died of a heart attack.
After this convulsion, Mama Elena dried up the milk. Unfortunately, at that time there was no powdered milk or anything like that, nor was it possible to find a wet nurse, so that in dire distress one saw how the hunger of the newborn should be satisfied. Nacha, a true expert in all kitchen things? and many more who are not doing anything for the time being? offered to take care of Tita's diet. In her eyes, she had the best qualifications to "get used to eating the innocent little creature's stomach," even though she herself had never married or had children. She was not even knowledgeable about reading and writing. Of course, in everything concerning the kitchen, no one could match her experience.Mamma Elena was only too pleased to accept this offer, for she had certainly enough burden to bear with her grief, the immense responsibility for the farm, the care to feed her children, and to offer them the best possible education; so she was glad, if at least someone from the care of the newborn and the problem, to get it properly fed decreased.
That same day, Tita moved to the kitchen, where she flourished with corn and herbal teas and soon bursting with health. This also explains the fact that she developed a sixth sense for everything that could satisfy her hunger. The times when she was fed on the kitchen plan were tuned: If Tita smelled in the morning, that the beans were even cooked, or noon noticed that the water was ready and the chickens could be plucked, or if in the afternoon the bread for She knew that dinner was cooking in the oven, it was time to loudly announce her meal.
Sometimes Tita just cried, like when Nacha chopped onions; however, since they both knew the cause of these tears, they did not take them seriously. After all, they were so boisterous at such moments that Tita never really learned how to differentiate during her childhood, whether tears of joy were shed or tears of sorrow. To them, laughter meant a way to cry. Likewise, she confused the desire to live with the pleasure of eating. For someone who had come to know life only in the vicinity of the kitchen, it was not easy to understand the world outside of this little kingdom; that is, the huge world that began behind the kitchen door and covered the entire interior of the house.
Because the terrain beyond the back door, which led out to the patio, the garden and the vegetable patches, she was familiar to the last corner, yes, here she was the undisputed mistress. Unlike Tita, this area was not appealing to their sisters, in which, as they suspected, innumerable unknown dangers lurked. The games in the kitchen were not only silly, but dangerous as well; Of course, one day they convinced Tita that it was a fascinating spectacle to splash drops of water on the glowing comal and let them dance wildly on it.
But while Tita sang and shook her wet hands rhythmically so that the drops would fall down more quickly on the comal to "dance," Rosaura, who was already scowling at mere watching, crept into the far corner. Quite different was Gertrudis, who was completely enthusiastic about this game, as well as anything else that had anything to do with rhythm, movement or music, and was enthusiastic about it. So Rosaura finally had no choice but to make the escape to the front, because she wanted to stand behind the other at no cost. However, since she hardly moistened her hands and only tentatively participated in the game, she was unable to achieve the desired effect. To help her, Tita tried to bring Rosaura's hands closer to the comal. Rosaura resisted bitterly.
Since neither of them gave in, a fierce fight ensued, until Tita suddenly lost patience and suddenly let go of Rosaura's hands, whereupon with the released momentum they descended into the middle of the glowing area. Not only was this mishap made Tita punishable as a punishment, but from then on she was forbidden to fool around with her sisters. Consequently, only Nacha remained as a playmate. Together, they spent their time chewing up games and pranks that always had something to do with the kitchen.
On that day, for example, when they discovered a man in the village square who made animal figures out of elongated balloons, and both of them immediately came up with the idea of imitating him, albeit with chorizo pieces. Not only did they build lifelike animals, they also invented phantasms, including those with goosenecks, dog paws and ponytails.
