Tita lives with her family on a ranch in Mexico. She falls in love with a boy, Pedro, who lives nearby, but when they want to marry, family precedent prevents it: Tita must remain unmarried in order to care for her mother. Tita’s love for cooking is such that her own emotions are transmitted to others through the food she prepares, and as her moods change in response to events in her life, the consequences for all those around her become ever more startling… even fatal.