2006/09/15 19:12
And That's a Wrap
I love burritos. Seriously. If I had my own country, the official national dish would be the burrito. We would trade in currency based on tortillas, and treaties would be notarized by pouring red chile and cheddar cheese over the top.
Naturally, the propagation of the "wrap" horrifies me. People nationwide are rolling foods up in a round flat bread and eating them, without even an inkling of the origin of this method. The most-frequently mounted defense of this retronym is that the food they're putting inside the tortilla isn't Mexican food -- but you know, if we can make a martini without gin, vermouth, or an olive, we can certainly make a Caesar salad burrito.
Of course, the Chicano culinary edification of most people in this country (as I'm quickly learning, living outside the Southwest for the first time) stops at Taco Bell. I have no problem with Taco Bell; I actually like it, but it's not really Mexican food. It's whatever cheap approximations of beans and meat and tortillas Yum, Inc. can afford the most trucks of, slapped together in different ways to pretend they're serving you different dishes. Still, if I'm going to eat a meal made entirely of partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, I'd rather be able to put hot sauce on it. And in name, at least, the menu items have always had something of an authenticity to them.
So I was mortified to walk in today on my lunch break and learn about the "Spicy Chicken Crunch Wrap." It wasn't enough that we as a people were all but ignored until last year, when we finally managed to outnumber every other ethnic group. It wasn't enough that Linda Chavez is attempting to convince the nation that Spanish-speaking kids don't need education they can understand. It wasn't enough that walking into a public building immediately profiled me as one Most Likely to Participate in Illicit Activities. Now Taco Bell, our last great stronghold in pseudo-Latino culture and education, is selling the accursed wraps.
Fortunately, I didn't have to engage the staff (paper-hat-wearing high-school dropouts they may be) in spirited discourse encouraging them to please change the menu before I delivered the cheapest possible truckload of whoop-ass. As it turns out, the Spicy Chicken Crunch Wrap is a chicken tostada set on an oversized flour tortilla, which is then folded up and browned on both sides in what appears to be the industrial version of the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine, creating a crispy six-sided UFO-looking menu item. It's a completely new presentation of the same four ingredients, and as such I can get behind a different name.
However, I feel compelled to point out that Taco Bell missed out on an even better and more unique name by not calling it the Mexagon.
Naturally, the propagation of the "wrap" horrifies me. People nationwide are rolling foods up in a round flat bread and eating them, without even an inkling of the origin of this method. The most-frequently mounted defense of this retronym is that the food they're putting inside the tortilla isn't Mexican food -- but you know, if we can make a martini without gin, vermouth, or an olive, we can certainly make a Caesar salad burrito.
Of course, the Chicano culinary edification of most people in this country (as I'm quickly learning, living outside the Southwest for the first time) stops at Taco Bell. I have no problem with Taco Bell; I actually like it, but it's not really Mexican food. It's whatever cheap approximations of beans and meat and tortillas Yum, Inc. can afford the most trucks of, slapped together in different ways to pretend they're serving you different dishes. Still, if I'm going to eat a meal made entirely of partially hydrogenated vegetable shortening, I'd rather be able to put hot sauce on it. And in name, at least, the menu items have always had something of an authenticity to them.
So I was mortified to walk in today on my lunch break and learn about the "Spicy Chicken Crunch Wrap." It wasn't enough that we as a people were all but ignored until last year, when we finally managed to outnumber every other ethnic group. It wasn't enough that Linda Chavez is attempting to convince the nation that Spanish-speaking kids don't need education they can understand. It wasn't enough that walking into a public building immediately profiled me as one Most Likely to Participate in Illicit Activities. Now Taco Bell, our last great stronghold in pseudo-Latino culture and education, is selling the accursed wraps.
Fortunately, I didn't have to engage the staff (paper-hat-wearing high-school dropouts they may be) in spirited discourse encouraging them to please change the menu before I delivered the cheapest possible truckload of whoop-ass. As it turns out, the Spicy Chicken Crunch Wrap is a chicken tostada set on an oversized flour tortilla, which is then folded up and browned on both sides in what appears to be the industrial version of the George Foreman Lean Mean Grilling Machine, creating a crispy six-sided UFO-looking menu item. It's a completely new presentation of the same four ingredients, and as such I can get behind a different name.
However, I feel compelled to point out that Taco Bell missed out on an even better and more unique name by not calling it the Mexagon.
"However, I feel compelled to point out that Taco Bell missed out on an even better and more unique name by not calling it the Mexagon."
I almost fell out of my seat laughing. I definitely snorted.
By the way, my co-worker grew up in NM and she says that she's lived in several places and nowhere compares to NM food.
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I almost fell out of my seat laughing. I definitely snorted.
By the way, my co-worker grew up in NM and she says that she's lived in several places and nowhere compares to NM food.
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