Magical Food Draft

Ever imagine food will cause you heartache, memory loss and pain? In the books Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquirel, The Odyssey by Homer and The Book of J all of the main characters experience pain, whether it is physically or mentally. Through food some miss the love of their life, some forget who they are, and others experience the pain of knowing. In all of these books, food contains a lot of power, which all the authors show as magic.

In Like Water for Chocolate the main character Tita is the one who prepares most of the meals. While preparing most of the meals for her family, Tita thinks a lot about her life. She thinks about the happy moments she experienced with Nacha in the Kitchen, and the even bad moments, like when she had to give up her love Pedro to her Sister Rosaura. Everything she feels and thinks is incorporated into her meals. The frustration and anger she feels intertwines with the very meals she is fixing up.

While Tita and Nacha are preparing the Wedding Cake for her sister and the love of her life, Tita cries. Her tears fall into the Wedding cake batter. Nacha tells her to stop, or she will ruin the cake. Nacha tastes the batter to make sure it’s okay. Tita’s tears didn’t ruin the taste of the batter. “The moment they took their first bite of the cake, everyone was flooded with a great wave of longing” (Esquirel 39). This is where the magic kicks in. Tita’s pain was expressed by her tears, which were mixed with the batter. When everyone ate the cake they felt sick, and they felt pain. This is just how Tita feels seeing her sister and Pedro get married. Her tears transpired sadness and hurt in others who tasted the very tears of her sorrow.

Just like in Like Water for Chocolate, in The Odyssey there is magic realism. Odysseus is traveling with his men in the Sea. The winds are so powerful that they drag them places they do not expect to arrive. They arrive in the city of Ismarus, where they get carried away with greed and do not want to leave, until the Cicones attack them. Odysseus and most of his men escape. Because of Odysseus and his men’s greed, Zeus sends a storm that sends them to the land of the Lotus-eaters. There they are offered fruit “Whoever ate that sweet fruit lost the will to report back, preferring instead to stay there, munching lotus, oblivious of home” (Homer book IX lines 94-96). This is where magic realism is incorporated in the story. This fruit is so powerful it makes them forget everything.

Unlike the other books, The Book of J contains a different type of magic. In this book Yahweh is the creator of all living things. He creates a man and a woman. They are both told to not eat from a tree in the garden. If they do “eat from it” said Yahweh “…that day death touches you” (paragraph 3). Both the man and the woman knew the consequences that come with eating from that tree.
Yahweh created many fine animals. But, none of them were like the snake. The snake was “smoother-tongued than any wild creature” (Paragraph 5). This snake talks to the woman, her name is Hava. He asks her about the tree in the garden. Hava explains to the snake that they are allowed to eat from any other tree, but the garden. If they do not obey that, death will fall upon them. The snake convinces Hava that this is not true. He tells her “eyes will fall open like gods, knowing good and bad” (Paragraph 5).

After hearing the snake speak, Hava eats from the tree and shared it with her man. Once they were done their eyes “...fall open, grasp knowledge of naked skin.” This is where the author uses magic realism. Before eating from the tree, you can say they are innocent. When they eat from it they know what it is to be naked. They gain the knowledge of good and bad from eating a fruit from a tree. Also after gaining this knowledge Yahweh punishes them, they experience the pain of knowing, in other words labor. Hava experiences giving birth and all of the pain that comes with it. While her man experiences the pain of hard working. Magic is also shown here because eating from the tree caused them pain and suffering.

Sometimes there are people who wish others could understand how they feel as in the case of Tita. She has to see someone she loves spend the rest of their life with her very own sibling. She without a doubt would have not minded eating the fruit Odysseus and his men ate, or eating the fruit from the tree in the garden, just like Hava. She could have gained the knowledge of good and bad, and could have found a way to be with Pedro, even though it would have caused her pain. Being human comes down to two things, being prepared or not being prepared. Tita wasn’t prepared to see the love of her life move on with her very own sister, but who would? Odysseus didn’t expect to lose his memory, and Hava did not know she would suffer. Magic realism is something many people wished was real because it can be powerful. Many may not, because it could be harmful. Just like in the cases of Tita, Odysseus, and Hava.




Works Cited

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Doubleday, 1989

Homer. Odyssey. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2000.

Rosenberg, David, trans. The book of J. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.