Four points need to be covered

1) Status of women

*Mexican theory about women (Like Water for Chocolate)

* Women and food theory

* How does society look upon women (Chocolat)

2) How has food played an essential part in the characters’ lives?

3) Food and its connection to everybody’s lives.

4) Food as the healer.

One knows that communication plays a great role in our lives, and it is only
through communication we understand the people around us. But
communication is not always verbal it is also non –verbal, so one can consider
food as a non-verbal means of communication. It is said that food has the power
to communicate many things. Scholars like Levi-Strauss, Ronald Barthes and
Evinid Jacobsen in their theories have talked about how food communicates and
how we communicate about food. Barthes uses semiotics to put role and
function of food into context. He says that food works as a sign, which helps in
communicating (Elements of Semiology, Barthes).

In “Toward a Psychosociology of Contemporary Food Consumption”, states

that food should not be seen as insignificant. He says that psychosociology
focuses indirectly on eating habits, and should be paid more attention (Barthes:
22-24). He asserts that food and culture are very closely related. Barthes states
that culture influences tastes and so does class, and talks about how food is a
‘situation’. He claims that food makes its own statement, and discusses how it
affects culture and culture affects food.

Levi-Strauss in his work, “The Raw and the Cooked”, states that food acts as a
code that can express patterns about social relationships. Apart from this
Jacobsen in his work, “The Rhetoric of Food” makes an important claim; he
states that just like anything, the definition one uses sets forth a whole range of
meaning, histories, actions and questions that a different definition might
foreclose. More than a defining role, how we frame or deploy food in language
also matters. And it is these definitions or way of thinking about food should be
unsettled, so that we can be mindful of our relationships to food.

Like Water for Chocolate

Each chapter starts with a recipe and each recipe is connected to a story or says
a memory. But these are not merely some memories; rather those are
experiences that are being passed from generation to generation. Each episode
begins with a recipe and this recipe further takes the readers to encounter Tita’s
life. Tita being the main character of the novel has a special connection with the
food. “Tita made her entrance into this world, prematurely right there on the
kitchen table amid the smells of simmering noodle soup, thyme, bay leaves,
cilantro, steamed milk, garlic and of course onion”. And this bonding of her
with food grows as the novel progress. Apart from this Tita’s interesting in
cooking is further enhanced and converted into skill by Nacha.

Food plays a major role in the book and since novelist is a Mexican writer, the
novel has elements of Mexican culture. The novel carries many of the culinary
traditions that the Mexican find very important in their culture. Mexican women
play a very important role in domestic life and must know how to prepare food
(Lomnitz and Perez-Lizaur 187). Different dishes are prepared on different
occasions, and this is what we see in the novel; for example, Tita prepares
turkey mole for Roberto’s baptism, then she prepares a special kind of cake,
with unique filling and with certain kind of icing for the wedding. Tita takes her
time in preparing each dish and makes sure to follow each recipe or formula
carefully. As it is already mentioned that each chapter starts with a recipe, and
these recipes are connected to an event. No doubt these recipes are made up of
tangible ingredients, but it is also made up of intangible ingredients like love,
sorrow, joy, patience, and hate for all etc. this is very much evident in the novel.
One instance when she makes a dish and into it she adds rose petals into it. She
prepares this dish with lot of passion and love for Pedro. As mentioned above
this novel basically talks about how food influences their lives and behaviour.
Tita’s life revolves around food from the day of her birth.
“From that day on Tita’s domain was kitchen, where she grew vigorous and
healthy on a diet of teas and thin corn gruels. This explains the sixth sense Tita
developed about everything concerning food”.

As a reader one can notice that food gave Tita a kind of temporary escape from
the iron-fisted control of her mother, Mama Elena. It is through food that Tita is
able to communicate her feelings to others (Dobrian, 1996: 63). Surapeepan
Chatraporn in her article states that, the novel is full of metaphorical
expressions that relate to food, one which serves as the novel’s title. Other
examples are, for instance,

“Fresh as a head of lettuce” (Esquivel, 1995: 136) and “how a lump of corn
flour is changed into a tortilla, how a soul that hasn’t been warmed by the fire
of love is lifeless, like a useless ball of corn flour” (Esquivel, 1995: 67).

As a reader one cans notice that under the domination of her tyrannical mother,
Mama Elena, Tita is unable to express her love either through words or actions,
so food here became a mediator for communication. She has the innate ability to
convey her feelings through the dishes that she prepares. Her dishes can make
people both happy and sad. Apart from this one can notice that food here also
serves as an agent for curing diseases, for example, Chencha’s oxtail soup is
cure for Tita’s uses food to treat Pedro’s burns. Tita also devises to cure bad
breath and this also helped her to overcome the breakdown. There is a clear cut
connection between food and emotions (Dinesen). Cooking various delicacies
gives these women the power which they were denied off. For example; Tita
was unloved by her mother and she had a miserable childhood; apart from that
she was not given the right to decide anything for herself. But when she started
cooking she was gained power and authority, because it was only through
cooking she had the liberty to convey her feelings and emotions. She had the
freedom to add whichever ingredient she wanted. It was only at the time of
cooking she was able to use her brain and all the senses. For example; the guests
who tasted her Chabela wedding cake, for instance, are overcome with nausea
and an overwhelming nostalgia for lost loves.
Chocolat

Food has a direct connection with emotions. Food acts as a vehicle to

communicate ones feelings and acts as agent to express one’s own feelings.
Food being the central part of human life acts as a source of love and concern
for others. This is very much evident in the novels that I will be dealing it. In
the novel Chocolat, it is seen that every character has direct or indirect
connection with food. Food being the part of celebration and happiness, as G.B.
Shaw has very rightly said there is no sincere love, than love for food. S. Sofia
Selvarani in her article ‘A Thematic Study on Chocolat by Joanne Harris’, states
that in the novel chocolate acts as symbol of temptation and desire which brings
a spatter of colour and comfort to the people. She says that food serves to
provoke feelings and help the villagers. The protagonist of the novel, Vianne
Rocher is a chocolate maker and she is shown in opposition to Francis Reynaud,
a priest who is trying to supress human desires and impels them to keep lent
(Harris 10). Since the novel also deals with some amount of magical realism in
it, the sudden appearance of Vianne in the village revives the celebration of
taste and infuses people with sense of life. The best example of this is Josephine
and Armande, food has worked as a healer in both of their lives. Their lives are
completely transformed. Apart from that the title of the novel itself shows food
as the dominant imagery in the novel. The shop opened by Vianne, served as a
place for the villagers to come and they can find the right chocolate for healing
their broken hearts and for solving their spiritual and amorous affairs. The shop
opens in such small village there is a strict code of behaviour governing such
situations, and people are reserved (Harris 18).

Harris through her novel unfolds a tale of life, love and death and bereavement,
of fear and violence, also happiness through the imagery of confections. At her
chocolate boutique, La Celeste Praline: Chocolaterie Artisanale, Vianne
excessively decorates the display window with a variety of multi-coloured
chocolates and sweets.

“In glass bells and dishes lie the chocolates, the pralines, Nipples of Venus,
white rum truffles, mendicants, candied fruits, hazelnuts clusters, chocolate
seashells, candied rose-petals, sagared violets…”(Harris, 2001: 33).

Food has a central place in human life. It isn’t just necessary for the body,
however. It is also has a tremendous impact, both directly and indirectly, on
emotional and intellectual well-being (somer, 1999:5). Food can be tangible
symbol of love and concern for others. It is a source of comfort and consolation.
It is also the oldest and best form of medicine known to mankind (Geary,
2001:3). There is a two way relationship between food and emotions. One’s
emotions can affect what and how much one eats, and what one eats can affect
the way one feels (Eldershaw, 2001: 13).

Happiness, simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet.

Alive.

For Harris, cooking is an art at which to marvel and to enjoy,

“This is an art I can enjoy. There is a kind of sorcery in all cooking: in the
choosing of ingredients, the process of mixing, grating, melting, infusing, and
flavouring, the recipes taken from ancient books, the traditional utensils.

Cooking, being a sacred ritual connects the cook to the people she cooks for and
does influence the mood, spirit and behaviour of everyone involved. Food has a
special influence on emotions and behaviours of the characters. Armande, the
village’s oldest resident, sipping a tall glass of mocha, even though she is a
diabetic patient. Her daughter Caroline has asked her not to drink chocolate
shakes or any other dish which has sugar in it. But Armande loves to eat, and
Vianne’s shop has become the source of happiness and this shop had filled
many colours to her life. Whenever she had a cup full of hot chocolate, she
forgot her monotonous life that she had being living all these years. Apart from
that as a reader one can see that chocolate had played a very dominant role in
governing their lives, the best example over here is Josephine. “The novel
makes a plea for passion and plessure as opposed to repression and denial”
(Ansen, 2000: 77). Surapeepan Chatraporn in her article, “Food, Emotion and
the Empowerment of Women in contemporary Fiction by Women Writers”
states that, Vianne’s luscious chocolate pits the forces of liberation and renewal
against those of repression and rigid tradition. Her aphrodisiac sweets awaken
their hearts of the self –denying villagers’ life’s abundance and ecstasy. The
novel also explores the ideas of community, morality, loneliness, belonging,
tradition and innovation, all presented through the imagery of confections. In
this novel also one can find that food working as a healing agent, and Vianne is
able to connect to the villagers heart is only through food. Surapeepan
Chatraporn in her article states that, Vianne establishes a magical relationship
with the villagers. She makes finds with the outcasts. She dares to be the victim
of slander because she challenges rigid tradition, and she offers food for a
hunger that has been deep down within the people she meets. The magic power
of her particular blends which fill the spiritually starved people with physical
and spiritual satisfaction become magic restorative remedies for all of them.
Vianne emerged as a saviour as well as healer.

Mistress of Spices

Mistress of Spices is usually read as a diasporic novel, but here I will try to
analyse it with a different perspective. Each chapter in the novel is named after
a spice, as reader one knows that every spice has its unique characteristics and
so each spice is associated to an individual’s life. Tilo is the main character of
the novel and she had done mastery in Ayurveda. She knows the magical
properties of all the spices and knows how to use them. She has used the
magical properties of the spices to heal people. One knows that spices play a
great role in the taste of the food, food without spices can be considered as food
without a soul. Tilo uses these spices to cure people spiritually and physically,
all the spices apart from adding taste to the food it has some medicinal
properties, so it can be used as a healer.

Divakaruni combines magic realism with lush descriptions of food from India in
her novel.