What is the importance of the narrator in Like Water for Chocolate, what is interesting about this type of narrator?

The narrator in Like Water for
Chocolate is an unnamed but presumably female distant niece of the novel's
protagonist, Tita.  It is interesting and somewhat unusual for an author to tell a story
from a first person point-of-view which is not a character directly involved in the
action of the story.  This narrator is important for a couple of
reasons.

Keep in mind that the story itself is told as a
chronicle of family folklore.  The narrator is a modern voice telling a very personal
story of the past. As a result, the unbelievable details in the effects of Tita's
recipes, for example, (referred to stylistically as "magic realism") are not questioned
but rather, accepted as natural and necessary elements to the folklore aspect of the
story.  Additionally, a modern and culturally diverse audience is invited into a more
personal connection to characters who could otherwise remain distant as a result of
cultural differences.

Finally, when, at the very end of the
story, it is finally revealed that Tita's recipes were found by the narrator's mother
among the ruins of the De la Garza family ranch, it is as if this story of folklore
might have stronger elements of truth than fiction.  Just as Tita's spirit will "go on
living" through the recipes, her story will continue to be passed on through a maternal
line.  Despite Tita's original conflict as the youngest daughter of an overbearing
mother and a family tradition prohibiting her from marrying (and being remembered
through her children), she is remembered, and celebrated,
anyway.