Slender and yet panoramic in scope, historical and yet relevant to current-day concerns, Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate has provoked from the outset a divergent range of critical opinions. The essays in A Recipe for Discourse: Perspectives on Like Water for Chocolate represent the novel’s problematic nature in their many diverse approaches, perspectives that are certain to awaken in the reader new ways of approaching the text while challenging old ones. This volume’s ‘dialogue’ format, in which essays are grouped thematically, is particularly effective in presenting such a diverse range of viewpoints. The reader will find herein lively discussion on LWFC as it relates to such themes as gastronomy, superstition, mythology, folklore, the Mexican Revolution, magical realism, female identity, alteration, and matriarchy/ patriarchy. It is the editor’s hope that a diverse readership, from undergraduate students to seasoned scholars, will find this volume engaging and enlightening.
