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.