SAY IT WITH HIS BOUQUET : MAKE QUAIL WITH ROSE PETAL SAUCE

Tita and Pedro are in love but will they ever be together? Over Mama Elena's dead body! Tita, brought up in the kitchen, finds the only outlet for her passion is in cooking. Those who eat her food feel an intense version of the emotion she had when she prepared it. Tita, being the youngest daughter, cannot marry Pedro. She must stay at home and look after her Mama Elena. However Mama Elena has another daughter who is only two years older.

Pedro accepts Mama Elena's cruel offer of Rosaura's hand in marriage so that he can be close to Tita, unfortunately under Mama Elena's ever-watchful eye! Poor Tita. Between Mama Elena's cruelty and Pedro's stupidity, Tita is being torn apart.

Thank goodness she has a refuge in the kitchen! Unfortunately it's hard to keep one's feelings to one's self when you put your heart and soul into your cooking.
 

When Pedro gives Tita roses Mama Elena orders her to throw them away.

Tita runs to the kitchen, clutching the roses to her body so tightly that the pink petals turn red with her blood. She decides that instead of throwing the roses away she's going to use them to make quail with rose petal sauce.

"With that meal it seemed they had discovered a new system of communication, in which Tita was the transmitter, Pedro the receiver, and poor Gertrudis the medium..."