Burritophile.com

A few days ago I was chatting with a Mexican restaurant owner, and he mentioned that his newest place is taking flack for a "lack of authenticity". I have seen numerous burritophile reviews that praise or dis places on the basis of their authenticity. This leads me to two questions:

1. What is authenticity in a burrito?
2. Why is this worth obsessing about?

If burritos were a traditional staple in some region (e.g. Sinaloa) it would certainly be meaningful to compare a burrito with that original style ... but burritos have no indigenous tradition. As nearly as I have been able to ascertain, they came into being somewhere in the SoCal/Arizona desert, and the oldest existing menu to list a burrito was from Los Angeles's famed El Cholo restaurant. Even if we could find an archetypal burrito against which comparisons could be made, the issue would not be authenticity but style (e.g. the differences between New York and Chicago style pizzas). I tend to prefer fresh tomato/onion/cilantro salsas over roasted chile salsas, and balanced combinations of ingredients over salsas that are dominated by a single ingredient ... but these are matters of style.

I can understand dissing a burrito if it is made with hamburger rather grilled steak, or if the salsa came out of a bottle. Perhaps this is what some people mean when they complain about lack of authenticity, but in my mind these are just inferior ingredients. Even high quality ingredients that have been freshly prepared can lack flavor, or ingredients can be combined according to recipes that introduce undesirable flavors (e.g. too much vinegar or the wrong cheese). All of these are valid criticisms, but none of them is really a matter of authenticity.

When I was a teenager, scarfing down my Taco Pronto valley burritos, I too had a sense that these were weak imitations of the real thing (which came from Burrito King down town) ... and (were I trying to articulate the difference) I too might have distilled it down to a matter of authenticity. Today, I would certainly not consider the difference between those LA street burritos and San Francisco burritos to be a matter of authenticity ... but rather one of style.

I suspect that when people use the word authentic they mean "similar to burritos I have loved in the past", and that lack of authencity means "different from burritos I have loved in the past". I have a few problems with this:

1. it implies that the burritos of yore are, per force, better than newer styles, and equates goodness with similarity to some baseline.
2. it draws on a standard that either does not exist, or is based on personal experience that is different for every burritophile.
3. it is vague and imprecise.

Don't praise or dis a burrito on the basis of its authenticity. Let's talk about the style, the recipe, the quality of the ingredients, the care in preparation, and the experiences they give rise to.

One man's opinion.