Annotations for People: Esquivel-laura 1950-

This year, the Mexican cinema is enjoying a revival with such films as "El Danson" and "Como Agua para Chocolate", "Like Water for Chocolate". "Like Water for Chocolate" is a saying, un dico, meaning that something is near the boiling point. And in her film and the haunted narrative of her novel, screenwriter and author Laura Esquivel, finds the boiling point in the kitchen and in relationships between men and women. From Boulder, Colorado, Betto Archos prepared this report.

It's the essence of love, femininity, and the affirmation of human nature that Laura Esquivel conveys through a novel which evolved when the author was cooking in her home in Mexico.

Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba. Porque a mi me encanta cocinar... [transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story.

Creo que tenemos pendiente una conversacion, no crees? Creo que fue desde que te casaste con mi novio. Empecemos por ahí si quieres... In this scene from the film "Like Water for Chocolate", the two sisters confront each other about the family tradition Tita refuses to uphold. Ya no hablemos del pasado, Pedro se caso conmigo y punto. Y no voy a permitir que ustedes dos se burlen de mí... But most of the action in "Like Water for Chocolate" centers around the kitchen. After the family cook dies, Tita takes over the kitchen responsibilities, and in her hands every meal and dessert becomes the agent of change. Anyone who eats her food is transformed by it, and sometimes in very surprising ways, according to Laura Esquivel.

Yo tengo una teoría que atraves de la comida se... I have a theory that through food, gender roles are interchanged and the man becomes the passive one and the woman the active one.

Para nosotros, el elaborar la cena, es el carácter de una ceremonia... For us, cooking is like a ceremony and has nothing to do with a commercial. It really is a ritual, a ritual in which the family participates, and by doing so, one heightens his human quality.

Bueno, me vino mientras cocinaba por que a mi me encanta cocinar…[transition to English dub] And it came to me when I was cooking my family's recipes. I would always go back to the past and clearly remember my grandmother's kitchen and the smells and the chats. And I always thought that it would be very interesting to adapt this natural, human mechanism to literature. And in the same way that one describes how to make a recipe, be able to narrate a love story…[transition to original audio] escribe como hacer una receta poder narrar una historia de amor...

Yo tengo una teoría que, a través de la comida se invierte…[transition to English dub] I have a theory that through food, gender roles are interchanged, and the man becomes the passive one and the woman the active one…[transition to original audio] a traves de la comida penetra en el otro cuerpo.

Para nosotros el elaborar la cocina el carácter de una ceremonia…[transition to English dub] For us, cooking is like a ceremony and has nothing to do with the commercial. It really is a ritual, a ritual in which the family participates, and by doing so, one heightens his human quality.