Burrito
Encyclopedia
A burrito or taco de harina, is a type of Mexican food
. It consists of a wheat flour
tortilla
wrapped or folded around a filling. The flour tortilla is usually lightly grilled or steamed, to soften it and make it more pliable. In Mexico, refried beans
or meat
are sometimes the only fillings. In the United States, however, fillings generally include a combination of ingredients such as Mexican-style rice or plain rice
, refried beans
or bean
s, lettuce
, salsa
, meat
, avocado
, cheese
, and sour cream
, and the size varies, with some burritos considerably larger than their Mexican counterparts.
foods like the burrito have a long history. Before the Spanish colonization of the Americas
, indigenous peoples
were eating hand-held snack food
s like corn on the cob
, popcorn
and pemmican
. In Mexico, the Spanish observed Aztecs selling take-out foods like tamale
s, tortillas, and sauces in open marketplaces. The Pueblo people
of the desert Southwest
also made tortillas with beans and meat sauce fillings prepared much like the modern burrito we know today.
Cuisine preceding the development of the modern taco
, burrito, and enchilada
was created by the Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Aztec
peoples of Mexico, who used tortilla
s to wrap foods, with fillings of chile sauce, tomato
es, mushroom
s, squash, and avocado
s. Spanish missionaries like Bernardino de Sahagún
wrote about Aztec cuisine, describing the variety of tortillas and their preparation, noting that the Aztecs not only used corn in their tortillas, but also squash and amaranth, and that some varieties used turkey, eggs, or honey as a flavoring.
and defined as "Tortilla arrollada, con carne u otra cosa dentro, que en Yucatán llaman coçito,y en Cuernavaca y en Mexico, taco" (A rolled tortilla with meat or other ingredients inside, called 'coçito' in Yucatan and 'taco' in the city of Cuernavaca and in Mexico City). This 1895 publication date discredits an apocryphal etymology that the word “burrito” originated during the Mexican Revolution period (1910–1921) in reference to the donkey of one Juan Mendez, a burrito vendor in Ciudad Juárez.
The word burrito means "little donkey
" in Spanish
, coming from burro, which means "donkey". The name burrito possibly derives from the appearance of a rolled up wheat tortilla, which vaguely resembles the ear of its namesake animal, or from bedrolls and packs that donkeys carried.
for the first time in 1934, appearing in the Mexican Cookbook, a collection of regional recipes from New Mexico
authored by historian Erna Fergusson
.
, a city in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where people buy them at restaurants and roadside stand
s. Northern Mexican border towns like Villa Ahumada
have an established reputation for serving burritos. Authentic Mexican burritos are usually small and thin, with flour tortillas containing only one or two ingredients: some form of meat or fish, potatoes, rice, beans, asadero cheese, chile rajas, or chile relleno
. Other types of ingredients may include barbacoa
, mole
, refried beans
and cheese
, deshebrada, and (shredded slow-cooked flank steak). The deshebrada burrito also has a variation with chile colorado (mild to moderately hot) and salsa verde (very hot). The Mexican burrito may be a northern variation of the traditional taco de Canasta, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Although burritos are one of the most popular examples of Mexican cuisine outside of Mexico, in Mexico they are only popular in the northern part of the country. However, they are beginning to appear in some nontraditional venues in other parts of Mexico.
Wheat flour tortillas used in burritos are now often seen throughout much of Mexico (possibly due to these areas being less than optimal for growing maize
), despite at one time being peculiar to northwestern Mexico, the Southwestern US Mexican American community, and Pueblo Indian tribes.
Burritos are commonly called tacos de harina (wheat flour tacos) in central and southern Mexico and burritas (feminine variation, with 'a') in northern-style restaurants outside of northern Mexico proper. A long and thin fried burrito similar to a chimichanga
is prepared in the state of Sonora
and vicinity, and is called a chivichanga.
The California burrito, a San Diego-area specialty, consists of chunks of carne asada meat, French fries
, cheese, and either pico de gallo, sour cream, or guacamole (or some combination of these three). The ingredients are similar to those used in the carne asada fries
dish, and it is considered a staple of the local cuisine of San Diego, California
. With its merging of French fries with more traditional burrito fillings, the California burrito is an example of fusion border food
. Although the California burrito originated in San Diego sometime in the 1980s, the first documentation of a burrito in its style can be found in a 1995 article in the Albuquerque Tribune
.
taquerias
of the 1960s and 1970's. Other theories state the original San Francisco burritos began with farmworkers in the fields of the Central Valley, or with miners of the 19th century. Febronio Ontiveros describes that he began offering the first retail burrito in San Francisco at El Faro (The Lighthouse) in 1961, a corner grocery store on Folsom Street. Ontiveros claims credit for inventing the "super burrito" style leading to the early development of the "San Francisco style". This innovation involved adding rice, sour cream and guacamole to the standard meat, bean and cheese burrito. El Faro got its start when firemen from a nearby station requested sandwiches, which Ontiveros was unable to make. Instead, Ontiveros offered the firemen burritos. Large tortillas were unavailable in the early 1960s, so three six-inch tortillas were used to hold the filling. Ontiveros sold the burritos for one US dollar. Others claim that the origin of the San Francisco style burrito required the use of the large flour tortillas lacking at El Faro, and instead give credit to Raul and Michaela Duran who sold burritos made in the now famous San Francisco style from their meat market on Valencia Street in 1969, which they converted into the La Cumbre Taqueria in 1972.
The San Francisco burrito emerged as a regional culinary movement during the 1970s and 1980s. The popularity of San Francisco-style burritos has grown locally, with Mission Street taquerias like El Farolito, and nationally with chains such as Moe's Southwest Grill
, Chipotle Mexican Grill
, Illegal Pete's, Freebirds World Burrito
, Qdoba
, and Barberitos
. In 1995, World Wrapps opened in San Francisco's Marina District, bringing a burrito-inspired sandwich wrap style to the restaurant industry.
, Southwestern cuisine, and Tex-Mex
. Southwestern breakfast burritos may include scrambled eggs
, potatoes, onions, chorizo
, guisado, or bacon. Tia Sophia's, a Mexican café in Santa Fe, New Mexico
, claims to have invented the original breakfast burrito in 1975, filling a rolled tortilla with bacon and potatoes, served wet with chili and cheese. Fast food giant McDonald's
introduced their version in the late 1980s, and by the 1990s, more fast food restaurants caught on to the style, with Taco Bell
, Sonic
, and Carl's Jr.
offering breakfast burritos on their menus.
style) burrito is slathered with a red chili sauce
similar to enchilada sauce with melted shredded cheese on top. It is typically eaten off a plate with a fork and knife, rather than hand held. When served in a Mexican restaurant in the U.S., a melted cheese covered burrito is typically called a burrito suizo (suizo meaning Swiss, an adjective used in Spanish to indicate dishes topped with cheese or cream
).
served without the tortilla, with the fillings placed in a bowl, with a layer of rice at the bottom. It is not to be confused with a taco salad
, which has a foundation of lettuce inside a fried tortilla. The burrito bowl is found in some form at many national Mexican food chain restaurants.
A chimichanga
is a deep-fried burrito popular in Southwestern and Tex-Mex cuisines, and in the Mexican states of Sinaloa
and Sonora
.
research chef
Anne Albertine experimented with grilling burritos to enhance portability. This grilling technique allowed large burritos to remain sealed without spilling their contents. This is a well known cooking technique used by some San Francisco taquerias and Northern Mexico burrito stands. Traditionally, grilled burritos are cooked on a comal
(griddle).
Bean burritos, which are high in protein and low in saturated fat have been touted for their health benefits. Black bean burritos are also a good source of dietary fiber
and phytochemical
s.
Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine, a style of food that originates in Mexico, is known for its varied flavors, colourful decoration and variety of spices and ingredients, most of which are native to the country. The cuisine of Mexico has evolved through thousands of years of blending indigenous cultures, with later...
. It consists of a wheat flour
Wheat flour
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of wheat used for human consumption. More wheat flour is produced than any other flour. Wheat varieties are called "clean," "white," or "brown" if they have high gluten content, and they are called "soft" or "weak" flour if gluten content is low...
tortilla
Tortilla
In Mexico and Central America, a tortilla is a type of thin, unleavened flat bread, made from finely ground maize...
wrapped or folded around a filling. The flour tortilla is usually lightly grilled or steamed, to soften it and make it more pliable. In Mexico, refried beans
Refried beans
Refried beans is a dish of cooked and mashed beans and is a traditional staple of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, although each cuisine has a somewhat different approach when making the dish.-Ingredients and preparation:...
or meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
are sometimes the only fillings. In the United States, however, fillings generally include a combination of ingredients such as Mexican-style rice or plain rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...
, refried beans
Refried beans
Refried beans is a dish of cooked and mashed beans and is a traditional staple of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, although each cuisine has a somewhat different approach when making the dish.-Ingredients and preparation:...
or bean
Bean
Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family Fabaceae used for human food or animal feed....
s, lettuce
Lettuce
Lettuce is a temperate annual or biennial plant of the daisy family Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable. It is eaten either raw, notably in salads, sandwiches, hamburgers, tacos, and many other dishes, or cooked, as in Chinese cuisine in which the stem becomes just as important...
, salsa
Salsa (sauce)
Salsa may refer to any type of sauce. In American English, it usually refers to the spicy, often tomato based, hot sauces typical of Mexican and Central American cuisine, particularly those used as dips. In British English, the word typically refers to salsa cruda, which is common in Mexican ,...
, meat
Meat
Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...
, avocado
Avocado
The avocado is a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...
, cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
, and sour cream
Sour cream
Sour cream is a dairy product rich in fats obtained by fermenting a regular cream by certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, which is introduced either deliberately or naturally, sours and thickens the cream. Its name stems from the production of lactic acid by bacterial...
, and the size varies, with some burritos considerably larger than their Mexican counterparts.
Antecedents
Hand-held take-outTake-out
Take-out or takeout , carry-out , take-away , parcel , or tapau , is food purchased at a...
foods like the burrito have a long history. Before the Spanish colonization of the Americas
Spanish colonization of the Americas
Colonial expansion under the Spanish Empire was initiated by the Spanish conquistadores and developed by the Monarchy of Spain through its administrators and missionaries. The motivations for colonial expansion were trade and the spread of the Christian faith through indigenous conversions...
, indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
were eating hand-held snack food
Snack food
A snack is a portion of food oftentimes smaller than that of a regular meal, that is generally eaten between meals. Snacks come in a variety of forms including packaged and processed foods and items made from fresh ingredients at home....
s like corn on the cob
Corn on the cob
Corn on the cob is a culinary term used for a cooked ear of freshly picked maize from a cultivar of sweet corn. The ear is picked while the endosperm is in the "milk stage" so that the kernels are still tender...
, popcorn
Popcorn
Popcorn, or popping corn, is corn which expands from the kernel and puffs up when heated. Corn is able to pop because, like sorghum, quinoa and millet, its kernels have a hard moisture-sealed hull and a dense starchy interior. This allows pressure to build inside the kernel until an explosive...
and pemmican
Pemmican
Pemmican is a concentrated mixture of fat and protein used as a nutritious food. The word comes from the Cree word pimîhkân, which itself is derived from the word pimî, "fat, grease". It was invented by the native peoples of North America...
. In Mexico, the Spanish observed Aztecs selling take-out foods like tamale
Tamale
A tamale — or more correctly tamal — is a traditional Latin American dish made of masa , which is steamed or boiled in a leaf wrapper. The wrapping is discarded before eating...
s, tortillas, and sauces in open marketplaces. The Pueblo people
Pueblo people
The Pueblo people are a Native American people in the Southwestern United States. Their traditional economy is based on agriculture and trade. When first encountered by the Spanish in the 16th century, they were living in villages that the Spanish called pueblos, meaning "towns". Of the 21...
of the desert Southwest
Southwestern United States
The Southwestern United States is a region defined in different ways by different sources. Broad definitions include nearly a quarter of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Utah...
also made tortillas with beans and meat sauce fillings prepared much like the modern burrito we know today.
Cuisine preceding the development of the modern taco
Taco
A taco is a traditional Mexican dish composed of a corn or wheat tortilla folded or rolled around a filling. A taco can be made with a variety of fillings, including beef, chicken, seafood, vegetables and cheese, allowing for great versatility and variety...
, burrito, and enchilada
Enchilada
An enchilada is a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a chili pepper sauce. Enchiladas can be filled with a variety of ingredients, including meat, cheese, beans, potatoes, vegetables, seafood or combinations.-Etymology:...
was created by the Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Aztec
Aztec
The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the late post-classic period in Mesoamerican chronology.Aztec is the...
peoples of Mexico, who used tortilla
Tortilla
In Mexico and Central America, a tortilla is a type of thin, unleavened flat bread, made from finely ground maize...
s to wrap foods, with fillings of chile sauce, tomato
Tomato
The word "tomato" may refer to the plant or the edible, typically red, fruit which it bears. Originating in South America, the tomato was spread around the world following the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and its many varieties are now widely grown, often in greenhouses in cooler...
es, mushroom
Mushroom
A mushroom is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source. The standard for the name "mushroom" is the cultivated white button mushroom, Agaricus bisporus; hence the word "mushroom" is most often applied to those fungi that...
s, squash, and avocado
Avocado
The avocado is a tree native to Central Mexico, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae along with cinnamon, camphor and bay laurel...
s. Spanish missionaries like Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún
Bernardino de Sahagún was a Franciscan friar, missionary priest and pioneering ethnographer who participated in the Catholic evangelization of colonial New Spain . Born in Sahagún, Spain, in 1499, he journeyed to New Spain in 1529, and spent more than 50 years conducting interviews regarding Aztec...
wrote about Aztec cuisine, describing the variety of tortillas and their preparation, noting that the Aztecs not only used corn in their tortillas, but also squash and amaranth, and that some varieties used turkey, eggs, or honey as a flavoring.
Development in Mexico
The word "burrito" appears in the 1895 Diccionario de Mexicanismos, where it is identified as a regional term from GuanajuatoGuanajuato
Guanajuato officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 46 municipalities and its capital city is Guanajuato....
and defined as "Tortilla arrollada, con carne u otra cosa dentro, que en Yucatán llaman coçito,y en Cuernavaca y en Mexico, taco" (A rolled tortilla with meat or other ingredients inside, called 'coçito' in Yucatan and 'taco' in the city of Cuernavaca and in Mexico City). This 1895 publication date discredits an apocryphal etymology that the word “burrito” originated during the Mexican Revolution period (1910–1921) in reference to the donkey of one Juan Mendez, a burrito vendor in Ciudad Juárez.
The word burrito means "little donkey
Donkey
The donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E...
" in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, coming from burro, which means "donkey". The name burrito possibly derives from the appearance of a rolled up wheat tortilla, which vaguely resembles the ear of its namesake animal, or from bedrolls and packs that donkeys carried.
Development in the United States
In 1923, Alejandro Borquez opened the Sonora cafe in Los Angeles, which later changed its name to the El Cholo Spanish Cafe. Burritos first appeared on American restaurant menus at the El Cholo Spanish Cafe during the 1930s. Burritos were mentioned in the U.S. mediaAmerican Media
American Media, Inc., is a publisher of a number of major United States-based magazines and supermarket tabloids.-Company background:The modern American Media came into being after Generoso Pope, Jr., longtime owner of The National Enquirer, died in 1988, and his tabloids came under new ownership...
for the first time in 1934, appearing in the Mexican Cookbook, a collection of regional recipes from New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...
authored by historian Erna Fergusson
Erna Fergusson
Erna Fergusson was an avid writer, historian, and storyteller, who documented the culture and history of New Mexico for more than forty years.- Early life :...
.
Mexico
Burritos are a traditional food of Ciudad JuárezCiudad Juárez
Ciudad Juárez , officially known today as Heroica Ciudad Juárez, but abbreviated Juárez and formerly known as El Paso del Norte, is a city and seat of the municipality of Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Juárez's estimated population is 1.5 million people. The city lies on the Rio Grande...
, a city in the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, where people buy them at restaurants and roadside stand
Street food
Street food is ready-to-eat food or drink sold in a street or other public place, such as a market or fair, by a hawker or vendor, often from a portable stall. While some street foods are regional, many are not, having spread beyond their region of origin. Most street food are both finger and fast...
s. Northern Mexican border towns like Villa Ahumada
Villa Ahumada
Villa Ahumada is a town and seat of the municipality of Ahumada in the state of Chihuahua in northern Mexico with 8,753 inhabitants...
have an established reputation for serving burritos. Authentic Mexican burritos are usually small and thin, with flour tortillas containing only one or two ingredients: some form of meat or fish, potatoes, rice, beans, asadero cheese, chile rajas, or chile relleno
Chile relleno
The chile relleno, literally "stuffed chile," is a dish of Mexican cuisine that originated in the city of Puebla. It consists of a roasted fresh poblano pepper , sometimes substituted with non-traditional Hatch green chile, Anaheim, pasilla or even jalapeño chili pepper...
. Other types of ingredients may include barbacoa
Barbacoa
Barbacoa is a form of cooking meat that originated in the Caribbean with the Taíno people, from which the term "barbecue" derives. In contemporary Mexico it generally refers to meats or a whole sheep slow-cooked over an open fire, or more traditionally, in a hole dug in the ground covered with...
, mole
Mole (sauce)
Mole is the generic name for a number of sauces used in Mexican cuisine, as well as for dishes based on these sauces...
, refried beans
Refried beans
Refried beans is a dish of cooked and mashed beans and is a traditional staple of Mexican and Tex-Mex cuisine, although each cuisine has a somewhat different approach when making the dish.-Ingredients and preparation:...
and cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
, deshebrada, and (shredded slow-cooked flank steak). The deshebrada burrito also has a variation with chile colorado (mild to moderately hot) and salsa verde (very hot). The Mexican burrito may be a northern variation of the traditional taco de Canasta, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Although burritos are one of the most popular examples of Mexican cuisine outside of Mexico, in Mexico they are only popular in the northern part of the country. However, they are beginning to appear in some nontraditional venues in other parts of Mexico.
Wheat flour tortillas used in burritos are now often seen throughout much of Mexico (possibly due to these areas being less than optimal for growing maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
), despite at one time being peculiar to northwestern Mexico, the Southwestern US Mexican American community, and Pueblo Indian tribes.
Burritos are commonly called tacos de harina (wheat flour tacos) in central and southern Mexico and burritas (feminine variation, with 'a') in northern-style restaurants outside of northern Mexico proper. A long and thin fried burrito similar to a chimichanga
Chimichanga
Chimichanga , also known as chivichanga or chimmy chonga is a deep-fried burrito that is popular in Southwestern U.S. cuisine, Tex-Mex cuisine, and the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Sonora...
is prepared in the state of Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
and vicinity, and is called a chivichanga.
United States
The most common style of the burrito in the United States is not as common in Mexico. Typically, American style burritos are larger than Mexican ones, and stuffed with more ingredients than the principal meat or vegetable filling. Pinto or black beans, rice (with cilantro and lime or Mexican style), guacamole, salsas, cheese, and sour cream are frequently added.San Diego
The San Diego style of burrito has been described as "austere" and "simple". A carne asada burrito in San Diego, for example, can consist solely of chunks of carne asada and guacamole, or carne asada, guacamole, and pico de gallo salsa, without other ingredients such as rice and beans. One may also encounter non-traditional, "healthy" burrito fillings such as eggplant.The California burrito, a San Diego-area specialty, consists of chunks of carne asada meat, French fries
French fries
French fries , chips, fries, or French-fried potatoes are strips of deep-fried potato. North Americans tend to refer to any pieces of deep-fried potatoes as fries or French fries, while in the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, long, thinly cut slices of deep-fried potatoes are...
, cheese, and either pico de gallo, sour cream, or guacamole (or some combination of these three). The ingredients are similar to those used in the carne asada fries
Carne asada fries
Carne asada fries are a local specialty found on the menus of taquería-like Mexican restaurants primarily in the American Southwest, including, but not limited to, San Diego, where it originated. This item is not normally featured on the menu at "traditional" Mexican restaurants.-Ingredients:The...
dish, and it is considered a staple of the local cuisine of San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
. With its merging of French fries with more traditional burrito fillings, the California burrito is an example of fusion border food
Fusion cuisine
Fusion cuisine combines elements of various culinary traditions while not being categorized per any one particular cuisine style, and can pertain to innovations in many contemporary restaurant cuisines since the 1970s.-Categories and types:...
. Although the California burrito originated in San Diego sometime in the 1980s, the first documentation of a burrito in its style can be found in a 1995 article in the Albuquerque Tribune
Albuquerque Tribune
The Albuquerque Tribune was an afternoon newspaper in Albuquerque, New Mexico, founded in 1922 by Carlton Cole Magee as Magee's Independent. It was published in the afternoon and evening Monday through Saturday....
.
San Francisco
Also called a Mission or Mission-style burrito, the typical San Francisco burrito is produced on a steam table assembly line, and is characterized by a large stuffed tortilla, wrapped in aluminum foil, which can include variations on different ingredients. The origins of the San Francisco burrito can be traced back to Mission DistrictMission District, San Francisco, California
The Mission District, also commonly called "The Mission", is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California, USA, originally known as "the Mission lands" meaning the lands belonging to the sixth Alta California mission, Mission San Francisco de Asis...
taquerias
Taqueria
Taquería is a Spanish word meaning taco shop. In some localities, however, it is used to refer to restaurants specializing in burritos , although tacos and other dishes are often served as well. Originally, Taquerías referred to the stands of street vendors. However, many taquerías today are...
of the 1960s and 1970's. Other theories state the original San Francisco burritos began with farmworkers in the fields of the Central Valley, or with miners of the 19th century. Febronio Ontiveros describes that he began offering the first retail burrito in San Francisco at El Faro (The Lighthouse) in 1961, a corner grocery store on Folsom Street. Ontiveros claims credit for inventing the "super burrito" style leading to the early development of the "San Francisco style". This innovation involved adding rice, sour cream and guacamole to the standard meat, bean and cheese burrito. El Faro got its start when firemen from a nearby station requested sandwiches, which Ontiveros was unable to make. Instead, Ontiveros offered the firemen burritos. Large tortillas were unavailable in the early 1960s, so three six-inch tortillas were used to hold the filling. Ontiveros sold the burritos for one US dollar. Others claim that the origin of the San Francisco style burrito required the use of the large flour tortillas lacking at El Faro, and instead give credit to Raul and Michaela Duran who sold burritos made in the now famous San Francisco style from their meat market on Valencia Street in 1969, which they converted into the La Cumbre Taqueria in 1972.
The San Francisco burrito emerged as a regional culinary movement during the 1970s and 1980s. The popularity of San Francisco-style burritos has grown locally, with Mission Street taquerias like El Farolito, and nationally with chains such as Moe's Southwest Grill
Moe's Southwest Grill
Moe's Southwest Grill is an American chain of fast casual style Tex-Mex restaurants headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.Moe's was founded in Atlanta, Georgia, in December 2000, by Raving Brands. In August 2007, the brand was purchased by FOCUS Brands...
, Chipotle Mexican Grill
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc. is a chain of restaurants in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada specializing in burritos and tacos, founded by Steve Ells in 1993 and based in Denver, Colorado...
, Illegal Pete's, Freebirds World Burrito
Freebirds World Burrito
Freebirds World Burrito, Freebirds for short, is a regional chain of fast casual burrito restaurants. Founded in 1987 in Isla Vista, California by Mark Orfalea and Pierre Dube, the restaurant chain expanded into Texas in 1990...
, Qdoba
Qdoba Mexican Grill
Qdoba Mexican Grill , is a chain of fast casual "Fresh Mex" restaurants in the United States serving Mexican-style cuisine. The company is owned by Jack in the Box, having been owned and expanded by ACI Capital until 2003....
, and Barberitos
Barberitos
Barberitos is a franchise chain of San Francisco-inspired restaurants based in Athens, Georgia, U.S.A. As of November 2011, 24 Barberitos restaurants are operating in the southeastern United States....
. In 1995, World Wrapps opened in San Francisco's Marina District, bringing a burrito-inspired sandwich wrap style to the restaurant industry.
Breakfast burrito
The breakfast burrito, a variety of American breakfast, is composed of breakfast items wrapped inside a flour tortilla. This style was invented and popularized in several different regional American cuisines, most notably New Mexican cuisineNew Mexican cuisine
New Mexican cuisine is a regional cuisine found in New Mexico, reflecting the regional climate and long history as part of the Native American, Mexican, Spanish and United States cultures. This form of southwest cuisine is most popular in New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and California...
, Southwestern cuisine, and Tex-Mex
Tex-Mex
Tex-Mex is a regional American cuisine that blends food products available in the United States and the culinary creations of Mexican-Americans influenced by the cuisines of Mexico.Tex Mex may also refer to:...
. Southwestern breakfast burritos may include scrambled eggs
Scrambled eggs
Scrambled eggs is a dish made from beaten whites and yolks of eggs . Beaten eggs are put into a hot pot or pan and stirred frequently, forming curds as they coagulate.-Sample preparation:...
, potatoes, onions, chorizo
Chorizo
Chorizo is a term encompassing several types of pork sausages originating from the Iberian Peninsula.In English, it is usually pronounced , , or , but sometimes ....
, guisado, or bacon. Tia Sophia's, a Mexican café in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...
, claims to have invented the original breakfast burrito in 1975, filling a rolled tortilla with bacon and potatoes, served wet with chili and cheese. Fast food giant McDonald's
McDonald's
McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...
introduced their version in the late 1980s, and by the 1990s, more fast food restaurants caught on to the style, with Taco Bell
Taco Bell
Taco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., which serves American-adapted Mexican food. Taco Bell serves tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "Value Menu" items...
, Sonic
Sonic Drive-In
Sonic Drive-In is an American drive-in fast-food restaurant chain based in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, complete with carhops who sometimes wear rollerskates. As of August 31, 2010, there were 3,500 restaurants in 43 U.S. states. Sonic serves approximately 3 million customers daily.-1950s:Following...
, and Carl's Jr.
Carl's Jr.
Carl's Jr. is an American fast-food restaurant chain located mostly in the Western and Southwestern United States. The first store has opened in Canada in Kelowna, BC. They are in the process of expanding to Mexico, Malaysia, Denmark, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Russia, Vietnam,...
offering breakfast burritos on their menus.
Wet burrito
A wet (or enchiladaEnchilada
An enchilada is a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a chili pepper sauce. Enchiladas can be filled with a variety of ingredients, including meat, cheese, beans, potatoes, vegetables, seafood or combinations.-Etymology:...
style) burrito is slathered with a red chili sauce
Chili sauce
Chili sauce is a condiment, similar to ketchup but with onion, garlic, and spice. Despite its name, it does not contain chili peppers and thus is not hot....
similar to enchilada sauce with melted shredded cheese on top. It is typically eaten off a plate with a fork and knife, rather than hand held. When served in a Mexican restaurant in the U.S., a melted cheese covered burrito is typically called a burrito suizo (suizo meaning Swiss, an adjective used in Spanish to indicate dishes topped with cheese or cream
Cream
Cream is a dairy product that is composed of the higher-butterfat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, over time, the lighter fat rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators"...
).
Related foods
A burrito bowl is a burrito or fajitaFajita
A fajita is a term found in both traditional Mexican cuisine and in Tex-Mex cuisine, commonly referring to any grilled meat served on a flour or corn tortilla. The term originally referred to the cut of beef used in the dish which is known as skirt steak. Popular meats today also include chicken,...
served without the tortilla, with the fillings placed in a bowl, with a layer of rice at the bottom. It is not to be confused with a taco salad
Taco salad
The taco salad is a Mexican inspired dish, with many variations, which first appeared in America in the 1960s.The salad is often served as a fried flour tortilla shell stuffed with shredded iceberg lettuce and topped with diced tomatoes, shredded Cheddar cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and/or Taco...
, which has a foundation of lettuce inside a fried tortilla. The burrito bowl is found in some form at many national Mexican food chain restaurants.
A chimichanga
Chimichanga
Chimichanga , also known as chivichanga or chimmy chonga is a deep-fried burrito that is popular in Southwestern U.S. cuisine, Tex-Mex cuisine, and the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Sonora...
is a deep-fried burrito popular in Southwestern and Tex-Mex cuisines, and in the Mexican states of Sinaloa
Sinaloa
Sinaloa officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 18 municipalities and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales....
and Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
.
Research
Taco BellTaco Bell
Taco Bell is an American chain of fast-food restaurants based in Irvine, California. A subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc., which serves American-adapted Mexican food. Taco Bell serves tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, other specialty items, and a variety of "Value Menu" items...
research chef
Food science
Food science is a study concerned with all technical aspects of foods, beginning with harvesting or slaughtering, and ending with its cooking and consumption, an ideology commonly referred to as "from field to fork"...
Anne Albertine experimented with grilling burritos to enhance portability. This grilling technique allowed large burritos to remain sealed without spilling their contents. This is a well known cooking technique used by some San Francisco taquerias and Northern Mexico burrito stands. Traditionally, grilled burritos are cooked on a comal
Comal (cookware)
A comal is a smooth, flat griddle typically used in Mexico to cook tortillas, toast spices, sear meat, and generally prepare food. Similar cookware is called a budare in South America. Some comals are concave and made of "barro" . These are still made and used by the indigenous peoples of Mexico...
(griddle).
Bean burritos, which are high in protein and low in saturated fat have been touted for their health benefits. Black bean burritos are also a good source of dietary fiber
Dietary fiber
Dietary fiber, dietary fibre, or sometimes roughage is the indigestible portion of plant foods having two main components:* soluble fiber that is readily fermented in the colon into gases and physiologically active byproducts, and* insoluble fiber that is metabolically inert, absorbing water as it...
and phytochemical
Phytochemical
Phytochemicals are biologically active chemical compounds that occur naturally in plants . Phytochemicals are the molecules responsible for the color and organoleptic properties . For example, the deep purple color of blueberries and the smell of garlic...
s.
See also
- ChimichangaChimichangaChimichanga , also known as chivichanga or chimmy chonga is a deep-fried burrito that is popular in Southwestern U.S. cuisine, Tex-Mex cuisine, and the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Sonora...
- Corn burritoCorn burritoA corn burrito is a Mexican-style dish consisting of a small rolled-up corn tortilla filled with refried beans. The filled tortilla is typically deep fried, then topped with hot sauce and cheese...
- EnchiladaEnchiladaAn enchilada is a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered with a chili pepper sauce. Enchiladas can be filled with a variety of ingredients, including meat, cheese, beans, potatoes, vegetables, seafood or combinations.-Etymology:...
- Korean burrito
- PopiahPopiahPopiah is a Fujian/Chaozhou-style fresh spring roll common in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. Popiah is often eaten in the Fujian province of China and its neighbouring Chaoshan on the Qingming Festival. In the Teochew dialect, popiah is pronounced as "Bo-BEE-a", which means "thin wafer"...
- Sandwich wrap
- San Francisco burritoSan Francisco burritoSan Francisco burrito is a type of burrito, originally a Mexican-American food, that originated in San Francisco, California. The San Francisco burrito is distinguished from a regular burrito partly by the amount of rice and other side dishes included in the package, and partly by its sheer size...
- TaquitoTaquitoTaquito or flauta is a Mexican food dish consisting of a small rolled-up tortilla and some type of filling, usually beef or chicken. The filled tortilla is crisp-fried...