巧克力情人

又看了一遍电影《巧克力情人》，前几天是在掌上电脑上看的，画面太小。
我想看一下南美女人丰饶的裸体在大屏幕上是怎样的奔放和魔幻，可是电脑屏幕还不够大。
如果在银幕上，应该更加魔幻吧。然而这个尺度的电影影院肯定不会放映的，或者删除镜头。

好多年前，也不知道是多少年前，在电视上看过片段，应该只是电影开头的一部分吧。
读洁尘的《小道可观》，看到她说小说《恰似水之于巧克力》，突然想到应该是我看过的电影。
后来在网上查了一下情节，果然有我看到的那一幕，就是这个小说改编的电影。
那个电影，有印象的只是女孩接过男人递过来的玫瑰抱在胸前，裸露的皮肤被划得鲜血淋漓。
我是看到洁尘说“为了接近自己爱的人，佩德罗娶了罗莎乌拉”才想到那个电影的。
因为突然就想到电影中那个男人说，接近自己深爱的女人唯一的办法就是和她的姐姐结婚。

当年玫瑰花划伤胸脯的一幕让我感到非常震撼，不知道当时在日记上是怎么写的了。
时隔多年再看电影，发现只是三条血纹，没有当初的震撼，太过轻描淡写了似的。
对于影片中动人心魄的爱情，也没有当初那么感动了。好似司空见惯。

相对于女人的执著和勇气，男人实在是太过懦弱了。
佩德罗只是对蒂塔一味深情，可是除了深情之外他什么都给不了她了。
他听从岳母的安排，带着妻子远走他乡，留下蒂塔一个人伤心欲绝，每天面对刁钻无情的妈妈。
当再次重逢之后，除了执著不变的爱恋以外，对一切仍旧只有顺从，改变不了命运的安排。

爱情真的是唯一的救赎吗？在失去爱情的日子里，蒂塔只感到无尽的寒冷。
到底什么样的爱情才能给人救赎？是佩德罗带来的激情燃烧，还是约翰传递的安全和平和。
安全和平和点燃不了内心的火苗，但是太过强烈的激情却容易很快燃尽，也容易失火成灾。

我觉得，多年之后重新与这个电影重逢，我的立场已然有所改变。
我已经不只是单纯地被他们历久不衰的爱情所震撼，竟然关照了他们爱情的牺牲品罗莎乌拉。
为了接近蒂塔，佩德罗才娶了她，除了和她生育孩子之外，一丁点的爱情也给不了她。
她的一生就这样被毁掉了，从来没有得到公正的对待，没有品尝过爱情的甜蜜。
这样的损害，纵使别人拥有再怎么伟大的爱情，又有什么资格强加给她呢？
曾经觉得爱情可以是一切的理由，现在却觉得谁也不应该以爱的名义伤害无辜。

很少看到这么精彩的魔幻现实主义色彩的电影。
这是一场名副其实的盛宴，食色性的盛宴，美妙无比，让人回味无穷。
蒂塔的爱情，以食物的形式入侵佩德罗的感官和身体，她的愤怒和悲伤，也以食物来发泄。
赫特鲁迪斯在吃了蒂塔做的玫瑰花瓣鹌鹑之后引发了体内潜藏的情欲，在原野上裸奔。
那样丰饶奔放的肉体真的非常迷人，比起女人们追求的纤细苗条的身体似乎更有健康美感。

几十年之后，一切障碍解除，他们两人再也无须向任何人负责，能够自由地相爱了。
老厨师娜恰的灵魂为他们布置了一个华美的床，他们在那张床上纵情地做爱。
几十年的欲望彻底迸发，内心所有的激情被点燃，佩德罗燃尽生命的火花死去了。
为了和他在一起，蒂塔吃掉了好多火柴头，点燃通往佩德罗的隧道，和他再次相聚。
她一边嚼火柴头，一边闭上眼睛唤起记忆，她和佩德罗一幕幕激动人心的往事再现眼前。
明亮的隧道终于打开，她毫不犹豫地向佩德罗走去，他们将永远不再分离。
佩德罗和蒂塔的肉体迸发出明亮的火花，点燃了整个房子。
房子变成了一座欢快的火山，向四面八方喷发，形成了五彩缤纷的焰火。
焰火整整喷发了一个礼拜。

此时此刻，我又觉得面对这样刻骨铭心的爱情，罗莎乌拉的牺牲实在是太不足道了。
任何事情，任何人，都要像这样的爱情让道，罗莎乌拉的悲哀又算得了什么呢？
谁让她愿意和不爱她的人结婚，况且她也没有爱上他。

我喜欢这样的故事，这样穿越岁月，经久不衰的爱恋才能打动我。
是真的，只有爱人的呼吸才能点燃内心的火苗，让生命焕发光彩，让生活不再空虚。
但愿我们内心永远都有这样的燃烧着的，或者等待点燃的火苗来温暖着自己。

照旧，三年前的文字。已经不能全权代表我对电影的理解和对爱情、生活的理解了，但放在这里，以回顾一下从前自己的视角，也是有意义的。



Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) is a novel written by Laura Esquivel. Published in 1989, it was a long-running best seller in Mexico. (Shaw 37) It remained over a year on the best-seller list of the New York Times and was translated into twenty-nine languages. (Shaw 37) In 1991, Mexican film director Alfonso Arau, also Laura’s husband, decided to adpat the best-seller a film. Then Como agua para chocolate turned out to be the most commercially successful Mexican film of the 1990s. (Shaw 37) However, the high gross of the film did not give a true impression of the state of the Mexican film industry. (Shaw 38) In 1990s, low-quality genre films relying on sex and violence prevailed the national film market in Mexico. (Shaw 38)
The film does not reflect a true picture of Mexico either. Following the government’s model of public and private investment, involving Aviasco (a Mexican airline) and the Ministry for Tourism, the film “promotes a conservative, romantic image of rural Mexico that would please the Ministry of Tourism and that belied the reality of mass poverty and ever increasing urbanization.” (Shaw 39) “It is represented as a rural land, which has maintained its culinary and social traditions.” (Shaw 51) The director has commented “the government is very grateful because the film did a great job in promoting tourism and the image of Mexico”. (Shaw 39)


From Novel to Film
Como agua para chocolate tells the story around the Garza family during the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917). (Lopez-Rodriguez 62) In the ranch ruled by the family, Mama Elena makes decisions for her three daughters—Gertrudis, Rosaura, and Tita—regardless of their own desires. (Lopez-Rodriguez 62) Both the novel and the film begin with Esperanza’s (Tita’s niece) careful reading of an inherited cookbook from Tita, and it brings back the memory of the Garzas. Tita is born on the dinner table in the kitchen in 1910. She is brought up by the family servant Nacha in the kitchen, where she learns her talent in cooking. As the youngest daughter of the family, Tita is destined to care for Mama Elena till the last second and is prohibited to marriage. However, in a family dinner, young Tita met a young man, Pedro Muzquiz. They soon fell in love with each other and claimed each other as the only love in the life. Pedro proposes to the Garzas, but Mama Elena turns it down. Instead, Pedro marries Tita’s sister Rosaura in order to be near to Tita. While Mama Elena keeps tormenting Tita, Tita confines herself in the kitchen, making all the delicious and creative dishes for the family. Magically, her emotion is blended into every dish she makes and has the ability to influence everyone who tastes the food she makes.
In Esquivel’s novel, the story is presented as a cookbook, sequenced with twelve months, with a recipe for each month. The twelve recipes each conclude a chapter, carrying special historical and ethnic implications within the ingredients and the procedures. Although the loving way the camera focuses on food makes clear to the film audience that food is a central character in this story”, the film shifts away from the original structure of the novel and brings the storyline without recipes as separation. (Lopez-Rodriguez 63) Many detailed dishes mentioned in the novel is only given a glimpse in the film, or even omitted, while the other ones are described carefully with the camera language. For instance, the February recipe of capones (capons) and the April recipe of mole de guajolote con almendra y ajonjoli (turkey in almond and sesame sauce) are both cut from the plot, and caldo de colita de res (oxtail soup) and tortas de Navidad (Christmas rolls) are only provided with the simplest description. The several recipes Alfonso Arau focuses on are pastel Chabela de bodas (Chabela wedding cake), codornices en petalos de rosa (quail in rose-petal sauce) and chiles en nogada (chili peppers in walnut sauce). Coincidently, two of these three dishes are specially made for the two weddings in the film, and each brings out a different effect. The emphasis of food in the film and the implications of the recipes will be explored later in the essay.
The rest of the story continues in a traditional way. Rosaura soon delivers a baby, and Tita uses her virgin breast milk to feed her. After finding out the vaguely unbroken relationship between Tita and Pedro, Mama Elena sends Pedro and Rosaura away, as well as the baby. Away from Tita, the baby dies, and the reason is believed to be the food. Tita goes insane and hides herself in the dovecote until John Brown, the ranch doctor, picks her up to his house. John takes care of Tita and helps Tita to reconstruct the confidence to face life. Determined to start a new life, Tita accepts John’s proposal. The moment Tita and Pedro reunite on the ranch, both of them know that their passion for each other does not go away. The day John leaves the ranch they have an affair. As a husband, John is always so understanding and tolerant. He forgives the adultery. At the end of the film, John drives car away for business. Pedro takes Tita to the barn house. In the house, the ghost of Nacha appears and lights every candle in the house. In the soft yellow light, Pedro and Tita’s love “finally blossom”. (Hart 172) Metaphorically indicated by the narrator, “all the matches inside Pedro’s body light at the same time”, and the brightness brings him to the eternal of peace. Tita begins to swallow matches, with the memory involving Pedro and her flashing back. She catches fire from the inside meets Pedro in the tunnel to eternity of love.
As the script written by the author of the novel, the film is able to retain the original flavors. The story is kept as original, and with the help of visual language, the film can do what the words cannot do. It puts imagination into reality on screen as well as transforming the story into a sumptuous Mexican feast.


Food in Como agua para chocolate
As “an important topic in the field of cultural materialism”, food is able to “bring to the forefront those elements of life that were traditionally overlooked because they belonged to the domestic sphere and not to the public, broader, male sphere.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 66) Many directors apply food as a medium to convey the meanings. In Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman, food is a mirror to Chinese culture and ideology. In Lasse Hallström’s Chocolat, food is a gifted creation of magic potion to cure the lagging and obstinacy of the town residents. In Sandra Nettleback’s Bella Martha, food gives a place for communication and enables people to know each other.
In Como agua para chocolate, Alfonso Arau puts tons of emphasis on food. Food plays the central role artistically and commercially. Preparation for food is provided close-up features in the film. The scenes are treated with tenderness and sequential details. Lighting, music and narratives accompanies to strengthen the emotions implicated by the scenes. More than visual enjoyment, the recipes also connect the characters and the storyline. Conclusively, the use of food generally serves functions in four dimensions: as a tag of identity, a language of communication, an expression of creativity and freedom, and an eye into Mexican society in revolutionary and contemporary period. It also offers a space for the story to turn into a magic realistic fairytale.

Language of Expression
Food is a metaphor for emotion throughout the film. Gifted as a very sensual woman, Tita is “repeatedly portrayed tasting, seeing, smelling, touching, and hearing. It is only logical that she communicates through an activity that comprises all the senses.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) At the time when Tita and Pedro firstly fell in love, Tita described “Pedro’s gaze on her shoulders” as “what raw dough must feel when it comes in contact with hot oil”. “Bubbles break out of her body”. The medium of food solidifies abstract feelings in Tita’s world, and Tita is able to resort to expressing her feelings through the creation of delicacy in the limited area of kitchen. In the kitchen, food is translated into a new language. In the film, Tita’s recipes are always related to whatever is happening to her at the time. One of the scenes is that in which Tita prepares the quails in rose petal sauce. Right after “Pedro has given her the roses to congratulate her on her excellent culinary skills on the anniversary of her first year as the house cook, and she uses them in defiance of her mother in this dish.” The cooking process is split in sequential details—peeling of rose petals, bundling the quails, grinding rose petal sauces, and adding a drop of mysterious seasoning—representing as an expression of her love for Pedro. “This scene is accompanied by lush piano music that highlights the connection between romance and the culinary process.” (Shaw 51) Here, “cooking is Tita’s way of telling him what she cannot vocalize.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)
Realizing the possible communication between Pedro and her through food, Tita feels “compelled to create more and more recipes that will keep alive the love” that Mama Elena and Rosaura had tried to prohibit. (Lopez-Rodriguez 69) “It is this need to create or re-create delicious dishes that moves Tita to put in writing all the recipes she has received from Nacha; that is how their cookbook is born.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)

Territory of Freedom and Creativity
We can understand that the kitchen offers Tita an area of “unrestricted freedom” to escape from Mama Elena’s tyranny. (Shaw 50) In the kitchen, Tita is given a free voice to express herself, a territoriality for creativity. (Lopez-Rodriguez 67) Mama Elena tries to control everything of Tita, restricting her from marriage according to the old convention that the youngest daughter should care for mother till death. But her power is limited outside the kitchen. Due to the lack of culinary experience, she never tells Tita what to cook and how to cook, so cooking provides “an outlet for the creativity Mama Elena is always restraining.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) So here Tita finds “a means of self-definition and survival”. (Lopez-Rodriguez 66)
“The liberation through food and cooking is not limited to Tita alone, but also occurs for the people who eat her meals.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 68) In Tita’s territory, her emotions evoked by personal experience are also transferred to others through food. “She feels and she makes others feel.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69) When blending the flour and eggs for making Rosaura and Pedro’s wedding cake, Tita unintentionally drops a tear into the ingredient. It turns out that during the wedding reception, whoever has a bite of the cake, is reminded of the sorrow of lost love. In an old Spanish love ballad, a sense of melancholy and frustration from “love of their lives” spreads through every guest and the scene culminates in a collective of vomiting. “Uncontrollable outbursts of pleasure, sadness”, which is usually forbidden in the ranch, is let free with the help of Tita’s food. (Lopez-Rodriguez 68)

Kitchen as An Eye
Esquivel has pointed out in an interview: “the kitchen, to me, is the most important part of the house. It is a source of knowledge that generates life and pleasure.” (Hart 173) Como agua para chocolate offers a “feminine kitchen-eye’s view of those turbulent years during Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), which is “at odds with the masculinity rhetoric of the history books with their emphasis on battles and the struggle for civic power.” (Hart 173) “The film, in its content, including modernization, the increase of social inequality, and the growth of feminism. This can be seen in the way that it ignores all of these issues and reinvents the past in such a way as to negate social history. The image of Mexico sold to national and international audiences through the film are filled with nostalgia for a mythical past. In this reinterpretation of the past, gender roles are clearly delineated, class and ethnic tensions are ignored, and nobody goes hungry.” (Shaw 39)
The cookbook received by Esperanza is an essential clue in the film. It connects different races and cultures in the film and “symbolizes not only the loving relationship among women but also the preservation of Nahuatl heritage and its mixture with Spanish and Ceole elements”. (Lopez-Rodriguez 70)
“Nacha and Chencha, members of ethnic minorities, have been denied by the dominant white upper class the possibility of expressing their knowledge through any medium other than the recipes they cherish. By passing the recipes on to the next generation they are not only able to communicate some practical information but to preserve elements of an indigenous culture that would otherwise be lost.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 69)

Construction of Fairytale
Labeled as magical realism, Como agua para chocolate is consisted of numerous fantastic scenes beyond reality and a bunch of fairytale traditions. The main roles in the film have their counterparts, which can be found in traditional fairytales. The romantic heroine Tita is like Cinderella, arduous and kind, while at the meantime suffering the inequality caused by a wicked mother, Mama Elena. Tita is so talented as a maternal role model that she even knows how to deliver the baby. “Bound to the kitchen from the moment of her emblematic birth in this very same room, Tita is treated first by her mother and later by Rosaura as just another servant.” (Lopez-Rodriguez 67) The setting even parallels with the story of Cinderella. John Brown, the fiancé of Tita, is the benevolent, careful and tolerant doctor that can be found in many 18th century fairytales as a positive figure without imperfection. In Como agua para chocolate, his tendance heals Tita’s sorrow for love and his great breath of mind forgives the adultery between Tita and Pedro. Nacha and Chencha are the servants who are satisfied with the status of being ruled and have a loving relationship.
Moreover, besides the setting of the roles, the strange alchemical reaction brought by food and the abrupt passion of people all tell the story in the language of fairytale.



Reference:
Ching, Eric, Christina Buckley, and Angelica Lozano-Alonso. Reframing Latin America. Austin: University of Texas P, 2007. 286-305.
Como Agua Para Chocolate. Dir. Alfonso Arau. Perf. Marco Leonardi, Lumi Cavazos. Videocassette. Buena Vista Home Video, 1992.
Esquivel, Laura. Como agua para chocolate: novela de entregas mensuales con recetas, amores y remedios caseros. México, D.F.: Editorial Planeta Mexicana, 1989.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate: a Novel in Monthly Installments, with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies. Trans. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. 1st ed. New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Halevi-Wise, Yael. "Storytelling in Laura Esquivel's Como agua para chocolate." The Other Mirror: Women's Narrative in Mexico, 1980-1995. Ed. Kristine Ibsen. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood P, 1997. 123-130.
Hart, Stephen M. A Companion to Latin American Film. Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2004. 171-178.
Lopez-Rodriguez, Miriam. "Cooking Mexicanness: Shaping National Identity in Alfonso Araus Como agua para chocolate." Reel Food. Ed. Anne L. Bower. New York: Routledge, 2004. 61-73.
Segovia, Miguel A. "Only Cauldrons Know the Secrets of Their Soups." Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture& Chicana/O Sexualities. Ed. Alicia G. Alba. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 163-178.
Shaw, Deborah. Contemporary Cinema of Latin America: Ten Key Films. New York: Continuum, 2003. 36-51.


April 6, 2008

　　在墨西哥，每个家庭中最小的女儿要等母亲去世后才能出嫁。蒂塔的母亲是非常传统的，她对这一传统的合理性坚信不疑。蒂塔从生下来就是作为母亲的侍女，她幼年在厨房度过。长大后成为一代食神。
　　
　　 青年佩德罗和蒂塔一见钟情，但是蒂塔是母亲的非卖品。为了能接近心爱的人，他娶了蒂塔的姐姐。此后，食物成了蒂塔的发言人。它在婚宴上广播蒂塔的伤心，它向佩德罗传达蒂塔的爱抚，……。
　　
　　 影片的最后，蒂塔终于等到母亲和姐姐都去世，她和佩德罗点燃了所有爱情的火柴，乐极升天。

http://toppi.blogbus.com

带着这种心情去做你喜欢的事情,让人们感觉甜蜜..

最近想象天堂的生活:不用思考.不用选择.不用语言去诉说解释什么.
 
 
朱古力是甜蜜的 我爱吃的 不忌讳发胖的.神秘的.她的配料是什么做成的呢>我想做她的人 一定诸入了爱情的原料..不然为什么如此甜蜜?
 
酒.寝室.人物..母亲.表演.妓女.包袱.思想.累.坚持.加油.爱.想念.珍惜

 非诚勿扰里，在男嘉宾反转权利环节，最受青睐的问题之一就是，女方是否会做饭。有人说男人心目中理想的女人是“上得厅堂下得厨房”，还有人说，留住男人的胃就才能留住男人的心。过去听说在日本，婆婆对媳妇的第一个要求就是会做家务，尤其是做饭。因为让男性做家务有损男人的“阳刚之气”。美食，超越了果腹只需，从生存的刚性需求成长为女性的软性服从。但是现在，随着社会经济和女权主义运动的发展，女人渐渐从锅碗瓢盆的束缚中解脱出来，同时也从以家庭为重心的传统中获得解放，而这种解放不再需要依靠白马王子。
　　
　　 在放弃主厨的同时，人们对美食却提出更苛刻的要求。做饭的义务渐渐由社会承担，家务劳动社会化大行其道。19世纪初英国卢德运动，为反对工厂主对工人的压迫而大量捣毁生产机器，结果被残酷镇压。再后来的宪章运动，发展到全国工人大罢工，但同样以失败告终。先且抛开好吃懒做和贪得无厌的恶劣品德，撒泼打翻厨具，愤然出走于厨房真不是一种聪明的“独立宣言”。
　　
　　 我们来看看《恰似水之于巧克力》中的女主人公蒂塔是怎么做的。与其说这是一本食色性质小说，我更愿意把它看做一篇唯美魔幻的女性解放小说。受制于最小的女儿必须终身不嫁且服侍母亲终身的家族传统，可怜的蒂塔只能在厨房找到童年的欢乐和生活的安慰。因食与男主人公培罗结缘，看着他钩摄魂魄的眼神，在那一刻她明白了面团被投进沸腾的油锅里的感觉。侵入体内的热量是那么真实，她觉得自己要像面团一样开始冒泡泡了。但狠心的妈妈紧咬不放，培罗只得通过和蒂塔的大姐姐柔沙结婚来接近他最爱的人。
　　
　　 只是看着自己最喜欢的人和自己的亲姐姐结婚就够残忍的了，蒂塔还得包办婚礼的所有食物。在熬制糖浆的时候，蒂塔的眼泪流进锅里，蛋糕怎么也稠不起来。第二天，每个客人再吃之后都感到一种钻心的疼痛和莫名的惆怅，三三两两蹲在草地上痛哭失去的爱人，继而中邪似的大吐特吐起来。
　　
　　 结婚一个月也正是蒂塔掌管全家饮食的满月纪念，培罗送给蒂塔一束粉红玫瑰，妈妈呵斥扔掉它，而蒂塔却把玫瑰捧在怀里，胸口渗出鲜血，玫瑰变成深红色。这本书当时连载了12个月，每个月份即一道菜谱（除6月以外），而这些菜谱也是真实可做的。蒂塔与培罗不得不时时刻刻保持着距离，但是食物却毫无顾忌地宣泄着深情与激情，直达胃部和身体的每一部分。蒂塔舍不得扔掉这些玫瑰，做出了三月份的鹌鹑玫瑰。玫瑰具有催情作用，再加上爱人的血，好像一种神奇的炼丹术，蒂塔的整个身子仿佛溶进了玫瑰花汁里，溶进了鲜嫩的鹌鹑肉里，溶进了美酒和菜肴的香味中。这就是她进入培罗身体的方式，灼热、妖娆、芬芳，完全是一种美的享受。
　　
　　 蒂塔的二姐乔楚浑身汗如雨下，这些汗都是红色的，散发出像玫瑰花一样强烈、可爱的香味。她几乎要晕倒，冲到淋浴室冲凉，但是体内的热量越来越多，木板的墙裂开燃烧起来，她跑被烧死一丝不挂地跑出淋浴室，这团香味变成一团粉红的云飘到起义军首领头顶，他骑马奔驰，正看见赤身裸体奔跑的乔楚。能量的涌动与互相映补，绚丽的火花瞬间迸发，他们纵马飞奔，热烈得拥抱、接吻。马背的颠簸和他们第一次交融时身体的起伏。
　　
　　 厨房在劳拉·埃斯基韦尔笔下，就是这么浪漫神秘。她说：“我生命中最初的光阴，是在我外婆、我母亲家厨房的炉火旁度过的。我看着这些智慧的女人，在进入厨房这块圣地之后，如何摇身一变而成为女修士，成为炼金师，摆弄着水、风、火、土者组成宇宙的四大元素。”蒂塔无疑就是这样的魔术师的化身，通过食物维持家庭的秩序，维系与家人的关系，同时也维护自身的尊严和爱情。精心制作的佳肴对某些人而言是一种亲昵，对某些人而言也是一种抵抗，每一次共进晚餐，烛光映照下，刀叉相碰的一瞬间一切就不言而喻了。
　　
　　 烹饪有诸多妙用，蒂塔总说秘方在于爱。失去了爱，烹饪便只是烹饪。医生告诉蒂塔，每个人的体内都有制造磷的物质，其实每个人出生时心里就有一盒火柴，但是我们自己不能把他们点燃。我们需要氧气和蜡烛，氧气就是呼吸，氧气可以是任何音乐、爱抚、语言活着声音。一根火柴点然后，我们会有一会儿就沉醉在一种强烈的情感中，激荡过后重归平淡。每个人都必须找到点燃自己心头之火的力量，因为正是那熊熊燃烧使灵魂得到滋养，那烈焰就是灵魂的食粮。如果一个人没有即使找到点燃心头之火的力量，那盒火柴就会受潮发霉，那时候连一根火柴也划不着了。
　　
　　 如果一种强烈的感情把所有的火柴点燃，就会产生眩目的亮光，照耀出一幅我们一般根本看不见的景象；我们的眼前会出现一条明晃晃的隧道，显现出我们在出生时就忘却的道路并呼唤我们重新去获得已失去的神圣本源。灵魂渴望能回到起点，只留下一具行尸走肉。
　　
　　 难怪亨伯特说洛丽塔是他的生命之火了。培罗离开后，妈妈对蒂塔更加严苛，自己亲自哺育的小侄女突然夭折，蒂塔逃离家园，但仍然逃不出对母亲威严和家族传统阴影的笼罩。最后，一碗牛骨汤治愈了她的失语症，汤能治百病，同时也激发了新的生存愿望。但是对食物的挑剔也能摧毁人，蒂塔的妈妈和大姐终于去世，苦恋了22年，他们终于摆脱束缚。
　　
　　 最后这道菜，叫做“核桃辣椒酱”。把洋葱用少许油在锅里炒。洋葱变成蜜饯色后加入肉末、箩籽和少量白糖。肉末炒至金黄色时加入桃子、苹果、核桃仁、葡萄干、巴旦杏仁和切碎的西红柿，直到炒熟为止。炒熟时加入味精。锅干后从火上端下来。接下来，把辣椒放在火上烤，剥掉皮。然后从一边切开，掏出籽和筋丝，把炒好的馅料填入。最后，在这道菜上撒上石榴，吃了这道菜的人爱意勃发。培罗和蒂塔推开房门，二百五十支蜡烛将房间照得雪亮，当他们的激情如瀑布奔腾而下时，屋顶上千余只鸽子飞走，农庄里的牛啊，猪啊，马啊，羊啊也都逃走了。
　　
　　 他们的眼前出现了那条光明隧道，他们的躯体迸发灿烂火花，床罩被点燃了，整个村庄都被点燃了。房间变成了一座爆发的火山，朝四面八方喷射出石头和灰烬，石头升上了高空，爆炸成五光十色的焰火，这焰火，竟持续了一个星期。村庄成了废墟，只有蒂塔的菜谱保留下来。只要有人按照蒂塔的菜谱做饭，她就仍然活着。
　　
　　 突然想起《来来往往》里的林珠，长腿细腰、黑丝袜红指甲，把康伟业这个一生正派的有妇之夫迷得神魂颠倒。他的眼中从此只有林小姐，妻子被他忘到了九霄云外。但在给林珠装修新房的这一天，林珠说，我是永远不会进厨房的，进厨房就等于人老珠黄，要么你做，要么出去吃。这时候康伟业才想起妻子的存在，想起以前那个家。有烟火，才叫家。
　　
　　 现在很多女性和林珠的想法一样，做饭成为择偶条件之一，成为筹码，不仅仅是男人对女人的基本要求，现在也成为女人对男人设置的门槛。《浓情朱古力》中，女人通过食物与另一个男人融为一体，现实生活中的男女却在用食物互相比较和排斥，最终沦落成菜市场的讨价还价，真是毫无浪漫可言了。
　　
　　 “厨房里没有虚掷的光阴。”劳拉·埃斯基韦尔相信通过厨房和劳作，当代女人可以在追求自身独立的同时与地球、宇宙和神灵之间建立一种新的关系。最终成为“对生产与再生产、理性与情感、内在与外在、物质与精神都一视同仁”的人。厨艺就像一种修行，正如入水反复烹煮的巧克力，在烟火中陷入了漫长的自我修炼；正如情爱，被反复兑如时间的水后细火加热，不是每个女人都能在你翻脸怒吼后温情脉脉地说：“我给你煮一碗鸡汤吧”。

爱情是没有罪过的，我们根本掌控不了，会在什么时候爱上什么人。但是像男主角那样，明明爱着妹妹却和姐姐结婚似乎太不地道了吧。明明可以只是一个人可以受伤，这下好了，三个人在同一个屋檐下，共同受伤。妹妹还要接受道德的考验，还要忍受思念的痛苦。如果是我，不管多爱，他结婚了新娘不是我，那么这便是结局，game over. 做为一个成熟的人，应该懂得控制自己的感情。如果把自己的爱情幸福，加在原本不应该的痛苦之上，我想我做不到。
我不羡慕他们在婚后各种思念各种爱情各种真爱的流露，我甚至觉得Tita应该嫁给那个医生，他才是真正爱女主的。就算给不了tita想要的爱情，但是他会祝福，会为tita争取作为一个女人应该有的名分。
爱情不允许有背叛，背叛的不是爱情，而当爱情真正转为亲情的时候，那便是大爱了。没有什么可以分割。
爱情就像巧克力，先苦后甜，如果加了泪水的巧克力like water for chocolate 那便失去了真爱的味道，没有了意义，只有涩涩的苦。