Original novelist and screenwriter Laura Esquivel was director Alfonso Arau's wife at the time. They divorced three years after the film's release.
The title means very little outside Mexico (it refers to the exact boiling temperature water needs to reach to make hot chocolate). In France it's called "Bitter Chocolate", in Poland it's "Red Roses and Tortillas" and in Japan it's called "The Legend of the Rose Petal Sauce".
An aspiring filmmaker from Texas, who was not involved with the project, spent time on set, because he was in town shooting a small budget ($5,000) full-length feature film for the Spanish home video market. That young filmmaker was Robert Rodriguez, and the film was El Mariachi, which became a hit at Sundance and launched his career.
The film was selected as the Mexican entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 65th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.