‘Como Agua Para Chocolate’ Centers Latina Womanhood

Books about our community make us feel seen and now some of our all-time favorites are getting the TV treatment and we are here for it. Two Latin American classics, Pedro Páramo by Mexican writer Juan Rulfo and One Hundred Years of Solitude by Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, have adaptations available on Netflix, and now the classic Laura Esquivel 1989 debut romance novel Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate) is being reintroduced to audiences in a HBO series adaption. The novel left a legacy for female Mexican writers and became a quintessential read in the romance and magical realism genre. Following its publication, Como Agua Para Chocolate became an international bestseller with over four and a half million copies around the world and has been translated into 35 languages. It was made into an award-winning movie of the same name in 1992 in Mexico and was the inspiration behind the 1999 movie Simply Irresistible starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. This timeless classic is set to return to our screens as a six-episode series that transports us into a world of magical realism and love in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico during the Mexican Revolution.

The series, like the beloved novel, centers the De La Garza family lead by matriarch Mamá Elena (Irene Azuela). The show’s protagonist Tita (Azul Guaita), Mama Elena’s youngest daughter and sister to Rosaura (Ana Valeria Becerril) and Gertrudis (Andrea Chaparro), is deeply in love with her childhood sweetheart Pedro Muzquiz (Andrés Baida), but is left disappointed due to her mother’s strict tradition in keeping Tita to care for her as she ages. She forbids their marriage and instead it is Tita’s sister Rosaura who weds Pedro. Having fostered a love for cooking traditional Mexican cuisine and holding an otherworldly connection with her emotions, Tita’s deepest desires and feelings come to life with each recipe. 

The series’ female cast spoke with HipLatina about their personal connection and inspiration from the novel itself in preparation for their roles. Azuela tells us of power of Esquivel’s narrative and the importance of the novel as a foundation for their approach to the series:

“The inspiration is in the book. The inspiration is in the imagery that Laura Esquivel proposes, the sensations, the historical moment that we live through. That is the source, that is everything really. We came to the set with our presence, with our body, with our view of the world to put ourselves at the disposal of that great story, because the truth is that it is difficult to find a story that powerful. All the details, all the secrets, all the answers are always there.”

While the premise of the story lies in a tale of forbidden romance, the heart of the show remains in its strong female leads who portray the dynamics between mothers and daughters and sisters. By exploring their personalities, desires, and dreams, the series is sharing the nuances of women during the early 20th century, a time where tradition and gender norms in society were completely different from today.

“It’s an honor being able to play such strong women with so much power and so much thought of their own. Especially at that time, when women were seen as housewives and cooks. Being able to interpret that character saying ‘we are very good cooks, but there is so much more to us too’. We don’t just have to cook and that’s it. We can create magic with our hands,” Guaita tells us.

“It is important today to give voice to these types of stories because it helps us recognize ourselves, realize customs and even certain wounds that we have carried for generations and years. It helps us understand the context that women live in to this day,” Chaparro adds.

Like the De La Garza sisters who are challenged by traditions imposed by their mother, Latinas and young women today face a similar experience as they navigate the changes in gender norms and how they conflict with their traditional families. In the series, particularly with Mamá Elena as the head of household, she is challenged by her own daughters’ desires in life as a strict, traditional figure. Whether it’s Gertrudis’ rebellious nature or Tita’s desire for love, she comes into conflict as a mother trying to uphold customs in her family.

“I think about the challenge, the fear that any mother has of going through stages with her sons or daughters, when you do not have the tools to be able to go through it in a good way,” Azuela shares. “Mama Elena is facing three women with desires, strength, a desire to take on the world, and find one’s place in the world. And she doesn’t know what to do with that so she ends up being authoritarian, too firm, too harsh and doesn’t know how to relate to them. In some way, I think it is something that I have, maybe in a smaller percentage, but it is present in me.”

When reminiscing about her connection to her character, Rosaura and female-centered stories, Becerril emphasizes a sense of familiarity she felt toward Rosaura—a stoic woman adhering to tradition, yet full of wants and desires—in relation to her own grandmother’s untold stories:

“Each character comes to teach you. I, particularly since they offered me Rosaura, enjoyed it a lot too. I felt very close to her, but like a family story, I felt Rosaura very close to the hidden stories that, for example, my grandmother had. So I used that as an exercise to also connect with her and tell the story that she couldn’t.”

With this new series adaptation allowing more time to immerse oneself in the plot of Como Agua Para Chocolate, the cast hopes for audiences to take with them different parts of what the series and novel are all about. 

Azuela highlights the series’ reintroduction of the story to fans and those unfamiliar with the story: “I hope they take away a new experience from what they already know. For those who do not know the story, they should let themselves be carried away by the invitation that the story has to enter a universe that is full of heightened senses of romantic love, of passion, of a desire to fight.”

Chaparro, on the other hand, reminds us of the story’s beautiful intertwining of Mexican cooking and sharing that with loved ones. She says, “I would love for the ritual of cooking as a family and sharing moments like that to become a custom among young people. We live in such a fast-paced era where we have instant gratification that sometimes we can miss taking a pause at certain moments.”

Como Agua Para Chocolate is available to stream on Max, with six episodes released weekly on Sundays.