San Francisco burrito

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A San Francisco burrito (photo from Sparkletack.com).

In San Francisco, California, and the surrounding Bay Area, the Mexican-American burrito has become a specialty, as the New York-based writer Calvin Trillin describes in his essay "Grandfather Knows Best": "In San Francisco, the burrito has been refined and embellished in much the same way that pizza has been refined and embellished in Chicago."^[1]

In the city's Mission District, taquerias, contrary to their taco-derived name, specialize in large, aluminum-foil wrapped burritos; the aluminum foil holds a large flour tortilla which itself is wrapped and folded around a variety of ingredients. Trillin writes that the San Francisco burrito "is distinguished partly by the amount of rice and other side dishes included in the package and partly by sheer size." ^[2] Though the San Francisco style of burrito-making originated in the Mission, variations on the style have spread throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, and indeed, into many other parts of the country. A food critic working for the San Francisco Chronicle counted hundreds of taquerias in the San Francisco Bay Area, and noted that the topic of which taqueria makes the best burrito can "encourage fierce loyalty and ferocious debate".^[3]

[edit] How San Francisco burritos are made

Two key technologies that made the San Francisco burrito possible are the large flour tortilla and tortilla steamers, which together increase the flexibility, stretch, and size of the resulting tortilla. The tortilla steamer saturates the gluten-heavy tortilla with moisture and heat, which increase the capacity of the tortilla to stretch without breaking. This in turn allows for the massive size of the San Francisco burrito. Corn tortillas, the original indigenous pre-Colombian form of the tortilla, cannot achieve either the size or the flexibility of the flour tortilla, and thus cannot be used to make a San Francisco burrito. A few San Francisco taquerias grill the tortillas instead of steaming them, using heat and oil instead of steam; and a few grill the finished product before wrapping it in aluminum foil.

The aluminum foil wrapping--present whether the customer is eating in the restaurant or taking out--acts as a structural support to ensure that the flexible tortilla does not burst. One of the main difficulties of the San Francisco burrito is the issue of structural integrity, but skilled burrito makers consistently produce huge burritos which do not burst when handled or eaten. A successfully large burrito depends on an understanding of the outer limit of potential burrito volume, correct steam hydration, proper folding technique, and assuring that the burrito ingredients have been properly drained of excess liquid.

Interior of a San Francisco taqueria; assembly takes place behind the glass.

Most San Francisco burrito purveyors use a modified assembly line. Most or all possible burrito ingredients are laid out in metal serving containers, heated from below, and in front of a counter, shielded by glass or plastic from the customer. Workers move the tortilla along the counter, quickly scooping successive ingredients onto the tortilla. They then fold and tighten the tortilla around the large bundle of ingredients, and close the aluminum foil around the completed burrito. An occasional variation that has recently gained popularity includes briefly mixing the ingredients together on a grill just prior to placement in the tortilla, which results in superior melting of any cheese applied and ensures the ingredients are all a similarly warm temperature.

The basic ingredients of the San Francisco burrito include the large flour tortilla, Spanish rice, beans (frijoles, usually with a choice of refried, pinto or black), a choice of a single main filling, and the customer's choice of salsa, ranging from hot to mild. Most taquerias also offer a "Super" burrito which includes all of these burrito ingredients along with sliced fresh avocado or guacamole, cheese (queso), and sour cream (crema).

For fillings, almost all San Francisco taquerias offer a choice of stewed or grilled chicken (pollo or pollo asado), grilled beef steak (carne asada), barbecued pork (al pastor) and braised shredded pork (carnitas); many also offer additional ingredients, including pork stewed in green chile sauce (Chile Verde), beef stewed in red chile sauce (Chile Colorado), Mexican sausage (Chorizo), beef tongue (lengua), stewed beef head (Cabeza), beef brain (Sesos), and prawns (camarones). Many taquerias also offer vegetable or tofu fillings to accommodate their vegetarian customers. Other common fillings offered in San Francisco taquerias include Birria (goat meat), Camarones Diablos (extra-spicy shrimp), Carne deshebrada (shredded beef with red chile sauce), Carne Molida (ground beef), Chicharrones (fried pork rinds, stewed), Barbacoa (true barbecued pork), Pescado (fish, usually fried Tilapia ), Picadillo (ground beef with chopped chiles and tomatoes), Mole (chicken stewed in a chile and chocolate sauce), and Tripas (beef tripe).

Many taquerias also provide corn tortilla chips to accompany the burrito as a side dish, along with free salsa.

[edit] Culture and politics of the San Francisco Burrito

Census data illustrates areas of San Francisco with high numbers of Latino residents shown in red; the northern vertical portion is the Inner Mission; the lower diagonal portion includes the Excelsior and Crocker-Amazon districts. The northern portion, the historic home of the San Francisco burrito, and with the heaviest concentration of Latino residents, has been most subject to the stresses of gentrification.

Starting in the mid- to late-1990s, the Mission District faced increasing rents and property values and an influx of higher-income residents and visitors, particularly during the dot-com boom. During this time, some elements of the San Francisco burrito experience became politicized. One activist disdained the practice of charging extra for chips and salsa, for instance, as an anti-Mexican symptom of gentrification.[1] Some taquerias also offer additional types of flour tortillas (for instance, whole wheat or spinach), but this same activist declared, "I will shoot my son and daughter if they ever order a green burrito."[2] These comments likely reflect a larger anxiety among San Francisco burrito fans of all ethnicities that economic and cultural changes in the Mission could destroy the soul not only of the neighborhood but of the burrito.

In the end, this kind of heated rhetoric of burrito politics mainly serves to exemplify the fact that the San Francisco burrito has become an important part of both bohemian and Chicano culture in San Francisco, as evidenced by an article originally published in the former SF Weekly, featuring La Raza studies professor Jose Cuellar, and archived on a website about sexuality.[3]

[edit] History of the San Francisco Burrito

Long-time residents of the Mission District trace the origins of the San Francisco burrito back to the 1960s. The owner of La Cumbre claims that his were the first, and that he designed the style of assembly that then became popular; if his claim is true, he dates the birth of the San Francisco burrito to September 29, 1969.^[4]

However, like most such claims, this is debated by others who claim to remember similar burritos from earlier in the decade. If the claims of the owner of El Faro are to believed, the first San Francisco burrito was sold September 26, 1961 to a group of San Francisco firefighters, using two 6-inch tortillas to play the role of what would later become the large single tortilla. ^[5] The fact that he did not have (and had not previously considered the need for) larger tortillas suggests that the birth of the San Francisco burrito as we now know it probably did not come earlier than that time.

And yet, the San Francisco burrito does have historical forbears in burritos made elsewhere. Some assert that the original San Francisco burritos were directly inspired by burritos brought by California Central Valley farmworkers into the fields, then reproduced in the city. One restaurant consultant remembered his teen years in the fields this way:

"Freezing cold five AM mornings, the best time to pick lettuce, owners needed a very good cook to attract the best fast crews. We'd get huevos rancheros at five, sweet strong hot coffee with a shot of brandy at seven, then full spicy killer burritos at around 10:30, keep you going till afternoon. I remember the texture of the shredded beef, the heat of the green peppers, and the proper proportion of rice and beans. They were so spicy you didn't need salsa-- but you needed that protein and fiber, couldn't survive without it." [4]

Other burrito researchers trace the burrito's ancestry even further back to miners of the 19th century. ^[6] The first printed references to burritos came in the 1930s; in the 1950s and 1960s, versions of the burrito spread through the American Southwest and beyond. [5]

But while the Mexican-American burrito began as a wider regional phenomenon, most would agree that the San Francisco burrito emerged as a recognizable and distinct local culinary movement during the 1970s and 1980s. One writer asserts that the San Francisco burrito--a large, compact and quite cheap meal--played a special role for those who lived through the local economic recession of the 1980s and early 1990s.^[7]

[edit] Imitators and descendants

The San Francisco burrito is also one of the progenitors of the idea of the wrap. The wrap was invented by four business school students who realized that in each of San Francisco's ethnic neighborhoods, some dish involved wrapping a tortilla-like wrapping around some food, and that therefore the ingredients inside a large tortilla could be composed of a wide range of ingredients.[6][7] A wrap can contain burrito ingredients, but a burrito is not a wrap.

The Chipotle Mexican Grill, started in Colorado by a chef who had previously worked in San Francisco, and financed by McDonald's, is the largest national effort to spread a burrito that is something like the San Francisco burrito beyond its local origins. San Francisco burrito fans disagree about whether this is a laudable effort. Chipotle's ambience, its usually prosperous neighborhoods, and some of its ingredients (for instance, its white rice, corn salsa and advertisements for "naturally grown pork") are not typical of the great San Francisco taquerias; however the production line, the aluminum foil wrap, and the size of the Chipotle burrito are similar to the San Francisco approach.

Qdoba Mexican Grill, also started in Colorado and owned by Jack in the Box, is Chipotle's largest competitor and also serves San Francisco-style burritos.

Some New York establishments advertise "Cal-Mex" or "San Francisco style" burritos. Two small chains of Boston taquerias are modeled after a local Bay Area chain.[8] And more and more burritos made in the San Francisco style can be found in other cities. While residents of other cities often find these burritos to be satisfying and even praiseworthy, many San Franciscans living in other cities make a point of disdaining them. Like the question of whether it is even possible to have excellent barbecue in New England, the conundrum of whether truly good San Francisco burritos can exist outside of their city of origin sometimes seems as much a spiritual question as it is an objective culinary one.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Sparkletack - exhaustive podcast audio essay on the topic
• Burritoeater - comprehensive guide to San Francisco taquerias
• Burritophile - user-driven taqueria review site
• BurritoBot - yet another SF burrito rating site
• Burrito Blog - documentation of burritos eaten by a New England-based but sometimes travelling blogger

Culture of the burrito

• Changes in taquerias = changes in the Mission In 2000, an anti-gentrification activist remembers the days that "Anglos were chased out of taquerias" and sees "charging for chips and salsa" as a bad sign for the neighborhood.
• A more famous guitarist in back than usual. Beck plays a famous San Francisco taqueria.