Kim Jong-un, Supreme Leader of North Korea, has been duly warned.
In fact, the whole nation of North Korea has been warned.
“Don’t Mess with Our Burritos”
The League of Latin American Citizens sent out that warning last week, in a press release quoting the organization’s president, Domingo Garcia.
It was bad enough when some Colorado white guys started Chipotle and appropriated the thousand-year-old Mexicano Burrito for their fast-food chain,” says Domingo Garcia, LULAC National President. “Now we got a dictator in North Korea being credited for inventing the burrito?! Them are fighting words! Kim Jong-un is feeding into a delusion if he thinks North Korea can wake up one morning and appropriate our Latino cultural identity. The fact is Mexicans have been building and eating real burritos for hundreds of years…
I agree, it was pretty bad when those Colorado white guys started the highly successful Chipotle fast food franchise. But allowing a North Korean food vendors to sell meat wrapped in a flour tortilla — rolled to imitate a Mexicano burrito — is sooooo much worse.
The anger-filled press release from the LULAC continued its complaint:
Yet, a North Korean newspaper states that the ‘wheat wrap’ was the brainchild of Kim Jong-il, who ruled the nation of 26 million between 1994 and 2011. He saw the pack-and-go meal as a way of feeding workers where they labored every day. The idea was so successful that burritos were featured in a TV propaganda show this week as a tribute to the late North Korean leader…
Many of us living in the American West — most of which was, at one time, part of Mexico — can validate Mr. Garcia’s claim about Latino cultural identity. Speaking personally, I started eating burritos in 1969, when my family was enjoying a summer vacation in Southern California. As I recall, we could buy a burrito at Taco Bell for less than a dollar. Like, maybe 25 cents?
(This was before the even-more-nutritous Taco Bell Taco Salad was invented. But that’s another whole story.)
(Mr. Garcia didn’t mention it in the LULAC press release, but Taco Bell was also started by a white guy. Another whole story.)
(With all these ‘other stories’, maybe our editor should have titled this column, ‘Part One’?)
According to the LULAC press release, “The origin of burritos is steeped deep in our history back to the days of the tamal in the Aztec civilization. The women would place pieces of dried meat inside a moist ball of cornmeal and wrap it in a cornhusk. The tribe’s hunters and warriors stored the all-in-one combo meal inside leather pouches tied to their waists as they ventured out, often for days…Over time, the cornmeal masa was replaced by a corn or flour tortilla, which evolved into the modern-day burrito. You might call it the first take-out food of the Americas…”
Of course, over the same period of time, the hunters and warriors were replaced by Taco Bell employees.
The LULAC president wrapped up his stern warning to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un with this terse comment.
“No seas burro and try to claim our burrito!” says Garcia.
I believe the English translation for ‘No seas burro’ would be ‘Don’t be an ass’. I have no idea how it would be translated into Korean.
We have a couple of real problems in America. Not only do white people (and other ethnic groups) start food franchises that make and sell burritos, but white people (and other ethnic groups) spread fake news.
Last week, numerous website shared the story about “a North Korean newspaper” claiming that burritos were invented by North Korea’s previous Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-il, the father of Kim Jong-un. Supposedly, this false news story appeared in the North Korean newspaper, Rodong Sinmun.
But my search of that newspaper’s archives — using various search terms like “burrito”… “wheat”… “meat”… “wrap”… and “Kim Jong-il”… failed to bring up any story wherein the Supreme Leader claimed to have invented “burritos”. I was able to locate only one pertinent news article in the newspaper’s English version — and judging by the grammar and word selection, I’m guessing it’s a translation from the Korean language version. Here’s the entire article:
In the expert translation (we assume North Korean translators are experts) the traditional Mexican word “burrito” fails to appear. Instead, these oversized egg rolls are labeled as “stuffed wheat cakes” — a foodstuff that former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il apparently found pleasing during a visit to the newly-built workshop at the Kumsong Foodstuff Factory.
We can recall that visit with deep emotion. Or, we might notice a sudden yearning for a very large egg roll.
And we also note the final sentence in the Rodong Sinmun article.
Indeed, a small stall for stuffed wheat cakes is associated with motherly love of our Party.
Just wondering how many of us feel a sense of motherly love, when visiting Chipotle or Taco Bell?
I mean, like… who, exactly, appropriated the thousand-year-old Mexicano Burrito? And the Latino cultural identity…?
Surely, there’s one idea we can all agree on. No seas burro.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.