Like Water for Chocolate

Content Warning: The Chapter 2 Summary depicts physical abuse.

The chapter begins with a recipe for Chabela wedding cake. Rosaura and Pedro are set to be married on January 12th. It has taken months to save enough eggs for the wedding cake. The raw eggs nauseate Tita, as they remind her of the chicken castrations that she and Nacha executed for the wedding feast. Tita did not attend Rosaura and Pedro’s engagement party and as punishment, her mother has put her in charge of food preparation. At one point, Tita is so distraught that she thinks she hears a baby chick in an uncracked egg.

The wedding preparations exhaust Tita and Nacha. Nacha senses Tita has been suppressing her emotions and encourages her to let go. Tita sobs so much that her tears dilute the cake batter; Nacha feels Tita’s sadness and weeps too. Next, they must prepare the marmalade filling for the cake. The smell of apricots triggers a memory for Tita: A month before, she ran into Pedro while spilling the apricots from her skirt. When she lifted her skirt to collect the fruit, she noticed him looking at her bare leg. Pedro tried to explain why he was marrying Rosaura, but Tita refused to listen. She ran home and found house cleaner Chencha and Gertrudis preparing the sheet for the couple’s wedding night. Because of the ongoing revolution, luxurious fabric is hard to find, and Mama Elena had to purchase it illegally. The sheet has a chastity opening (for the couple’s genitals) so the couple do not have to see each other naked. The sight flooded Tita with images of white symbols of purity, reminding her of her inability to marry.

Tita must put aside her memories to make icing for the cake, but her tears flow into the icing. Nacha sends Tita to bed. When Nacha tastes the icing, she is immediately overcome with grief for a lost love; Mama Elena’s mother had forbidden her to marry. Nacha is too sick to attend the wedding.

Tita struggles through the wedding ceremony as she overhears the guests whispering about her. She does not like being pitied and thinks back to childhood instances when she exhibited strength and tenacity. She once won a swimming contest crossing the Rio Grande and another time, she heroically reigned in four spooked horses. After the wedding, Tita and Pedro embrace and he whispers a promise of undying love: “[…] through this marriage I have gained what I really wanted; the chance to be near you, the woman I really love” (36). Mama Elena separates them and chastises Tita for her reckless behavior. After the cake is served, Tita notices all the guests are becoming emotional thinking of their lost loves. Even Mama Elena cries over her husband’s premature death. Soon, the crying turns to vomiting. Rosaura runs away to be sick and slips on the river of vomit, ruining her dress. Mama Elena accuses Tita of poisoning the cake and beats her so severely that she is bedridden for weeks. When Tita returns home, she finds Nacha dead in her bed, clutching a photo of her fiancé. Pedro avoids consummating his marriage for months, until Rosaura insists she has recovered from her illness.

One year later, Tita becomes the ranch cook in place of Nacha. Rosaura despises cooking; the one time she prepared a meal, she burned it and made everyone sick. Though Mama Elena has been militant about keeping them apart, Pedro still manages to slip into the kitchen and gives Tita roses as congratulations for her becoming the ranch cook. When she sees the roses, Mama Elena is furious and forces Tita to get rid of them. The pregnant Rosaura is heartbroken over Pedro’s gesture. Tita clutches the flowers so tightly that the pink petals turn red with her blood. Not wanting to discard the roses, Tita remembers a recipe Nacha taught her: pheasant in rose petal sauce. The recipe is rich and sweet, and includes chestnuts, honey, and pitaya. Tita doesn’t have pheasant, so she decides on quail instead. She botches the first kill but finds her confidence and cleanly harvests the rest of the birds. Preparing the birds reminds her of when Mama Elena forced her to eat soft-boiled eggs as a child. Making the dish makes her feel close to Nacha: “…it seemed Nacha herself was in Tita’s body doing all those things” (36).

The meal is a masterpiece, but Mama Elena refuses to give Tita credit, claiming the quail is too salty; Pedro says, “It is a dish for the gods!” (37). Jealous, Rosaura refuses to eat much of the meal. Gertrudis has an intense reaction to the meal, feeling aroused. She begins to sweat profusely and fantasizes about Pancho Villa’s captain of the guard, whom she saw in the village earlier that week. His rebellious spirit is attractive, and she imagines what it would be like to be naked in his presence. Gertrudis seeks help from Tita, but Tita is staring at Pedro. The meal provides a way for Tita to commune with Pedro; however, her sexual desire consumes Gertrudis as well. Gertrudis is normally tasked with dishwashing but cannot do so due to her aroused state; she continues to sweat and smells of roses. She decides to take a shower, but the heat from her body is so powerful that the water turns to steam and the walls burst into flame; she is forced to run naked into the field. Her scent travels to town and envelopes the rebel soldier Juan Alejandrez. He immediately abandons his post and gallops toward the ranch. Juan scoops Gertrudis up onto his horse, and they begin to have sex as he gallops away. Tita and Pedro watch from the porch, the former longing for the latter to ask her to run away with him. Pedro thinks of Gertrudis’s naked body and how he would like to see Tita naked. Just as he is about to ask Tita to leave, Mama Elena calls them inside. Tita lies to her mother about what happened, saying rebel troops kidnapped Gertrudis. Later, Mama Elena learns from the parish priest that Gertrudis is now living in a brothel. Deeply grieved, she burns Gertrudis’s possessions and forbids anyone to speak her name. Tita believes Gertrudis has been liberated and makes the quail dish each year to celebrate. She continues knitting her bedspread each night, looking to the stars for comfort.