First revision draft

Food and Knowledge

Have you ever noticed you can't concentrate when you are hungry? in the Book of J, the Odyssey, and the novel Like Water for Chocolate, we find different relationships and meaning for food and knowledge. In the Book of J, the story of Adam and Eve who according to Christianity and Judaism are our first parents is presented. In the Odyssey we find the journey of Odysseus, an ancient Greek warrior. In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, the story of Tita is presented. All three have a different relationship and meaning between food and knowledge.

In the Book of J, Adam and Eve fall into knowledge by eating the forbidden fruit. They lived in a place called Eden, where Yahweh provided everything "from all the trees of the garden you are free to eat, but the tree of knowing good and bad" (The Book of J.62). Yahweh also made a clear warning to Adam, :Eat from it and on that day, death touches you"(The Book of J.62). Eve was told by the snake that eating from the forbidden tree would not harm her, but it will open her eyes like Gods knowing good and bad. She took the risk and ate from it, noticing htat nothing had happened to her, she gave Adam to eat from it too. They immediately discovered their nakedness and went to get leaves to cover their bodies. Yaweh knew what Adam and Eve have done because they were hiding from him ashamed of their naked bodies "Who told you naked is what you are?"(The Book of J.64). Adam blamed Eve for giving him the fruit and Eve blamed the snake, for which Yahweh punished bounding it to the ground and making it enemy to the women. Then Yahweh punished the women "pain increasing, groans that spread into groans, having children will be labor"(The Book of J.64). Finally Yahweh punished Adam "biiter be the soil to y our taste, in labor you will leanr to eat from it"(The Book of J.64). Yahweh removed Adam and Eve from the garden because he feared that with the knowledge they had just gained, they could now go to the tree of life and eat from it, making them both Gods like him.

Although in the Book of J to eat food clearly means to gain knowlege, in the Odyssey, it meant to loose or recover knowledge. One of the examples we see in the Odyssey is when Odysseus and his crew came to the land of the Lotus-Eaters. After eating and gathering supplies, two of the men went into town to explore and mis with the locals. The Lotus-Eaters, who meant no harm, gave lotus to the men. They immediately lost their will to go back and report to the ship instead preferring to stay there and eat more lotus, "whoever ate that sweet fruit lost their will, munching lotus, oblivious of home"(Ody.X.95-100). The lotus was a powerful fruit that would make anyone who eats it lose their perception of time and pplace, giving them the desired to eat more and more lotus. Another example in where food has a different connection with knowledge is when Odysseus went to the underworld, Hade's home, to talk to Tiresias> Odysseus had a pit filled with blood. Any dead people he would like to talk to would have to come to him and drink from the blood to recover their human memory. "Move off form the pit and take away your sword, so I may drink from it and speak truth to you"(Ody.XI.90-93) said Tiresias to him. After talking to Tiresias, Odysseus spoke with Agamemnon, an old friend whose wife had taken his life. Agamemnon told Odysseus to be careful and not to trust his wife, the same thing might happen to him, "beach your ship secretly when you come home, women just can;t be trusted anymore"(Ody.XI.472-475). Odysseus gained knowledge through the conversation he had with different dead people in the underworld. The example of his dead friend gave him a hint of what could happen to warriors that spent a great time away from home. He was now conscious of what to expect upon returning home.

In the Novel Like Water for Chocolate, Tita was a girl whose mother had denied her the happiness she was longing for, to be with Pedro. Tita was a great cook from the moment she was born and, because she was the youngest of the three girls, she was introduced to the kitchen as her main duty. She learned the culinary arts through Nacha, the house maid. Tita was torn apart when her sister Rosaura married Pedro, but quickly learned ways to let Pedro know how much she still loved him through her cooking. Tita's feelings for Pedro were so strong that the meal she prepared, the quail in rose petal sauce, had a different meaning to every single family member in the house. To Mama Elena, the food meant trouble as she knew Pedro was fascinated with every single meal day after day, "he let Tita penetrate to the farthest corners of his being"(Esquivel.52). To Rosaura it meant competition, she knew her sister was gaining ground with her husband. To Gertrudis it gave an experience she never had before, an uncontrollable urge for sex, "that was the way Tita entered Pedro's body, hot, voluptuous, perfumed, totally sensuous"(Esquivel.52). She learned the uncontrollable feelings her sister Tita had for Pedro through this meal. This knowledge was so strong that she ran away naked with a revolutionary soldier, leaving everything behind. All she could think of was satisfying her sexual arousal, similar to the effect that lotus had on Odysseus's men. Tita's feeling were reflected on her cooking and throughout the story everyone in her life knew her state of mind through it.

In these three stories we see how food and knowledge are interconnected. In the Book of J, the whole meaning of existence was revealed by just eating one fruit. A whole life style changed in a matter of seconds, a whole generation of humans were corrupted and Adam and Eve's struggle to survive day by day begun with just eating from a tree. In the Odyssey, a crazy like state of mind with lose of perception and willingness by one fruit, or the recovery of your human memory by drinking sheep's blood after being dead. Finally, a continuation of love and acknowledge through cooking. Even in her dark hours of pain and sorrow, Tita let everyone know her feelings, especially when she made her sister's wedding cake. Everyone at the wedding felt the pain Tita was feeling. Food and Knowledge have being tied to each other since the beginning of our days. From the cave man hunting to the civilized man's agriculture, we see how one led to another, which is food led to Knowledge.

Works Cited

The Book of J. Trans. David Rosenberg. Editor. Harold Bloom. New York:Grove, 1990.
Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Trans. Ellen Claire. New York:Doubleday, 1989.
Homer, The Odyssey. Trans. Stanley Lombardo. New York:Random House, 1961.

Leticia

In the movie Tortilla Soup, I was attracted to the character Leticia, a chemistry teacher in her mid thirties, who the author introduces as a religious woman. We first see her at the beauty salon where Yolanda was getting a new hair look. We can see that she was closed minded, very opponent to change when the hair dresser tried to persuade her to have her hair done. She immediately refuses and storms out of the salon and on her way out, she stops in the mirror and takes a second look at the hair dresser suggestion, which is to have her hair cut at mid shoulder.


Leticia was very devoted to her students and we started to see her change when a baseball ball stroke into the classroom and she first meets the baseball coach. The students noticed her attraction towards the coach and started sending her love letters. As naive as she was, she believed it was the coach that was secretly in love with her. Leticia was perceived as the woman that was going to stay with her widow father for life. We saw this when her father and best friend talked about the girls, his best friend made a comment that she was getting old and that the train had left her.


The letters the students were sending her started to change her character, she started to be seem as a much happier person, often feeling guilty for her feelings, she will take longer at super praying to God for forgiveness and strength. She also started to loosen up when the sisters were having a discussion after one of them had purchased her own apartment and gave the news to the family at dinner. She broke some dishes and sang along with her sisters after. She also started to be concern with her appearance after the coach said they should work out and mentioned something about her wrinkles; he was out of worlds to try to connect with her. Soon after she broke up the news to her sister that she was falling for the coach and her sister helped her with her make over. The following day she went straight to the baseball game and kissed the coach in front of the whole crowd.


The coach's reaction wasn't what she had expected and that's when she found out about the whole prank. She was devastated but that was the incident that united her with the coach, soon after she secretly ran with him to Vegas and married him. She also had the courage to brake the news during dinner to her family and introduced her husband to her father.

Food and Knowledge

Whether you are religious or believe in the scientific development of man, we have books, songs, paintings, and every single form of human expression that indicates how food and knowledge are linked to one another. In the book of J, we find the story of Adam and Eve, according to Christianity and Judaism our first parents; and in the novel Like Water for Chocolate, the story of Tita, both in which food and knowledge go hand by hand.

Adam and Eve was a happy innocent couple that lived in a garden full of food and did not know what it was to work hard for anything. God had given them everything they wanted and the only thing he required them to do was not to eat from the tree of knowledge and life. It was said to them that if eating from the tree of knowledge, they will die. After being "seduced" by the snake, Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and did not die, she went and gave Adam from the tree also and the innocent veil was lost. They immediately discovered their nakedness and covered themselves, distinguishing right from wrong. God decided to remove them from the garden because they now were ignorant no more, and if they were to eat from the tree of life, they will become gods like him.

In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, Tita was a girl whose mother had denied her the happiness she was longing for, to be with Pedro. Tita was a great cook, from the moment she was born and because she was the youngest of the three girls, she was introduced to the kitchen as her main duty. She learned the culinary arts through Nacha, the house mate. Tita was torn apart when her sister Rosaura married Pedro, but quickly learned ways to let Pedro know how much she still loved him, through her cooking. Tita's feelings for Pedro were so strong that the same plate had a different meaning to every single family member in the house. To Mama Elena, the food meant trouble as she knew Pedro was fascinated with every meal day after day. To Rosaura, it meant competition; she knew her sister was still in love with her husband and she was gaining ground with him. And to Gertrudis, it gave her an experience she never had before, an uncontrollable urge for sex.

In these two stories we see how food and knowledge are interconnected. In one the whole meaning of existence was revealed by just eating one fruit. A whole life style changed in a matter of seconds, a whole generations of humans corrupted and the struggle to survive day by day begun with just eating from a tree. In the other story a continuation of love, acknowledgment of the uncontrollable love through cooking. Even in the dark hours of pain and sorrow, Tita let everyone know her feelings, especially when she made her sister's wedding cake. Everyone at the wedding felt the pain Tita was feeling.

We have something inside that drives us to dare and discover "curiosity", and because of this curiosity we have gain knowledge, whether it was good or bad to know what we know now, religious or scientific, it has giving us a better insight at what being human means.