INVESTIGATING GASTRONATIONALISM IN LAURA ESQUIVEL’S LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOLATE

Abstract

The present article examines the concept of ‘gastronationalism’ - how traditional cuisines represent national identity and heritage. It explores how dishes emblemize unique cultures, uphold hierarchies, enable resistance, and dissolve ‘otherness.’ The objective is to assess food’s role in constructing localized identities or nationalist ‘imagined communities’ united by shared experiences despite a lack of connections. Additionally, migrant communities retain identities by preserving traditions in adopted lands amidst assimilation pressures. Outcomes reveal that across scales spanning state cuisine sponsorship to family meals, food production and habits enable charged negotiations of belonging, roots, adaptation, and progress. The analysis shows that tastes literalize intangible heritage, binding groups across borders. Analyzing gastronationalist frameworks thus illuminates the sociocultural soul encoded in even everyday sustenance.