Week 5- Like Water for Chocolate

Dr. Amy McNichols talked a lot about Latin American culture, specifically in the movie “Like Water for Chocolate”. I thoroughly enjoyed her presentation. I enjoyed it because I have always loved Latin American culture so this made it super interesting for me to learn more things that I did not know before hearing the presentation. Dr. McNichols also mentioned that cookbooks are an important source of information about women’s daily lives. I think that this is definitely true because women are usually the ones that are in the kitchen so cookbooks are the most important thing that they need to succeed in the kitchen. Another extremely interesting point that Dr. McNichols brought up was that you’re never just American, there’s always a little bit of everything. Another way of saying this is that there is “one foot in two worlds”. To me, this means that no person is solely from one culture. There are so many different cultures that someone can be a part of. Chicano culture refers to Mexican Americans. This is something that Dr. McNichols really made sure she reiterated many times in her presentation. This is very important to our topic because like I mentioned earlier, there are often a few different cultures that people can be a part of. In the movie that we watched (“Like Water for Chocolate”), it was pretty evident that the characters were Mexican American. Another thing that Dr. McNichols talked about was all of the various kinds of Pre-Hispanic foods. The ones that she mentioned were Tomato, Chile, Cacao (chocolate), Avocado, Corn (la tortilla), papaya, and beans. These are all types of food that were represented in the movie that we watched. When you typically think about Latin American culture, all of these foods are basically staple foods for these people. Overall, I really enjoyed the presentation. I love Mexican food so this is one reason, but I also enjoyed it because it was interesting to learn some new facts that I did not know before.