Burrito

“Little donkey”

The word burrito literally means “little donkey” in Spanish — possibly referring to the bedroll-like shape, or to a 19th-century street vendor in Ciudad Juárez who carried his folded tortilla wraps on a donkey. The earliest documentary evidence of the dish appears in the Diccionario de Mejicanismos (1895) describing it as a Mexican specialty.

Two distinct dishes share a name

The “burrito” of northern Mexican cuisine and the “burrito” of California are different foods:

• Mexican burrito — small, simple. A flour tortilla with one or two fillings: beans, machaca (dried beef), eggs, or cheese. The tortilla is tight and thin.
• Mission burrito (San Francisco, 1960s) — large, stuffed. A massive flour tortilla wrapping rice, beans, meat, cheese, salsa, sour cream, and guacamole. A single burrito approaches a full meal in size and weight.

The Mission burrito — invented in San Francisco’s Mission District in the 1960s and 70s — is the form most non-Mexicans now recognize as “burrito.” Chipotle, Qdoba, and similar chains all build on the Mission template.

Chimichanga

Drop a burrito in hot oil and you get a chimichanga — deep-fried until the tortilla blisters. Origins are disputed (claimed by both Tucson, Arizona and Phoenix), but the dish is firmly Sonoran-Arizonan rather than Mexican.

Wet vs. dry

A “wet burrito” or enburritado is covered in sauce — usually a chile gravy or enchilada-style sauce — and often topped with melted cheese, eaten with a fork. A “dry burrito” is just wrapped, eaten with hands. Both styles have devotees.

The breakfast burrito

Texas and New Mexico claim the breakfast burrito’s invention — flour tortilla, scrambled eggs, breakfast meat, potatoes, cheese, salsa. It’s now a fast-food staple at chains across the U.S.