1st Major Head Trip - The Dawn of El Sueno

Well, I've been tasked with reviewing HEAD activities. As co-Grand Poobah, I take this responsibility very seriously and so I decided to wait to write this until I sobered up and was able to piece together a majority of the evening before I sat down at the keyboard...And here I am, one week later.

The evening began, for Ira, Joan, Jeneva and me on BART, where we encountered a weird guy who paced around the car until he tried swinging from the overhead straps and nearly ended up in our laps. I was cowering, but Jeneva was ready to kick his ass which is one of the many reasons I'm proud to call her my friend. We figured the dude was probably on meth. We got off BART at 16th & Mission in San Francisco and walked a couple of blocks up to The Monk's Kettle, a really nice bar/restaurant which had amazing looking food and where we would have stayed to eat had we not been on a burrito crawl.

We met up with Steve, Robin, and Annie and had a few beers (Jeneva and I had wine because we're middle aged women and that's what we like dammit!). The place was crowded but we found space at the bar where Jeneva and I discovered we could still get a young man to give us his phone number (OK, I showed him a picture of my daughter and said it was for her - but still...Jeneva and I got game!) Once we established that we were the whole group, we ambled down to La Cumbre and ordered burritos. The shrimp burrito was delish but strangely lacking in shrimp, the chips were good and we were joined by Nancy! After we finished our burritos and used the facitities, we bid adieu to the lady with the big tits in the painting and headed southeast to El Faro with a stop in a really cool vintage furniture store where I could live happily ever after. On the way there, we saw Meth Man from BART, ranting around the street...

Its about a seven block walk between burritos and we were anxiously awaiting our next course. When we got there, we discovered a weakness in our HEAD planning which we will remedy before the next outing. El Faro closed at 7:00. We got there at 7:15. What kind of burrito joint in the Mission closes at 7:00?! Clearly not one relevant to the HEAD Society. Plus, when we pre-burritoed the route, I thought that La Cumbre had a far superior burrito. It was fresher and didn't taste of lard (which tastes good but is kind of a cheat in my opinion).

No problemo! Off we marched to the Homestead (4th oldest bar in SF). We found a table in the back and ordered beers (wine for me and Jeneva) and peanuts. Deb, the bar manager and Ira's twin (separated at birth) wasn't there, but that was OK because the place was crowded and she wouldn't have had time to talk anyway. We ate a LOT of peanuts because most of us had gone easy on the burritos at La Cumbre, figuring we would be eating more at El Faro so we were a little hungry.

It was funny, because the Giants game was on in each of the places we ate/drank, so we got a sort of strobe version of their win (it was a week ago - they were still in the hunt...!) The Homestead is pretty cool, because its old, they have nude pictures all over the walls, and they allow dogs to come in! We met a Bedroom Slipper named Milo, a Border Collie named Zolo, and a Hound of the Baskervilles named Sweet Pea. Honestly, Sweet Pea was a full breed English Mastiff and the most enormous dog I have ever petted and tried to steal. You'd have to use a backhoe to clean up after him, though, so maybe its good I didn't succeed...but still...

We walked back to BART and decided to go to the 16th St. station instead of Civic Center which was closer because it was better to walk through a crummy area than a shitty area. We got back on the train and headed home. Next to us sat a young man with a bag. As we motored along he reached in his bag and pulled out lip gloss and an eyelash curler which he used with more expertise than I ever have. I surmised he was gay and therefore I felt unthreatened so I started talking to him. He told me that he was a nurse and that the guy over there was really cute!

The guy he was looking at was Ira!!! I said that he was talking about my hubby and he laughed. He seemed to think I was kidding. I moved back over to sit next to Ira when the young man (Enrique) asked if any of us spoke Spanish. Joan did so he told her that Ira was so cute - his dream ("El Sueno") and a bunch of other things I didn't understand. On the way out of the car, (in Hayward thank you Lord!) he gave Ira's a shoulder a squeeze. The cool thing about the whole thing was that now we have a new nickname for Ira. He is El Sueno. It suits him.

We made it home and immediately started planning our next outing. We will be checking out the origin if the martini in Martinez (really!).  Of course, Jeneva and I like wine so we'll probably opt out of martinis after the first several...or so. Also, we're planning a Christmas Italian cookie walk in mid December. Watch your email and/or Facebook, El Sueno will be in touch...

THE GREAT BURRITO QUEST

As the story goes, the burrito began as street food during the Mexican Revolution. Sometime between 1910 and 1921, Juan Mendes sold tacos from a donkey cart in the Bella Vista neighborhood of Cuidad Juarez. To keep his tacos warm, Juan began wrapping his food inside large homemade flour tortillas. He referred to his treats as “food of the burrito”, In Spanish burrito means “little donkey”. Think of Juan’s cart as one of the original food trucks.

The name, burrito, may have referred to the appearance of the new food. Either it looked like a donkey’s ear or resembled the rolled bed blankets the animals carried on their backs. Which ever the case, burritos quickly became a hit.

The original burritos were small, thin and contained only one or two ingredients (meat, potato, beans, cheese or chili relleno).

The burrito’s popularity spread into the American Southwest, Texas and across to California but not south into Mexico. In Mexico they are a regional food of the north of the country. Beyond the boarder region, burritos are commonly known as tacos de harina meaning wheat flour tacos.

By the 1930s the burrito had migrated out of Cuidad Juarez to Tucson, Arizona and west to Los Angeles. They arrived in the City of Angles in 1923 when they were featured at the famous El Cholo Spanish Café. The term burrito first appeared in print in a 1934 newspaper article and was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1958.

In California, where burritos are king, we are divided north and south. The SoCal-sytle resembles Juan’s original burrito. These are thin, simple and don’t contain rice. This was how burritos were served until the 1960s when the NorCal-style was born. The NorCal or Mission-style burrito is a plump, hefty appetite crusher filled with meat, rice, beans and salsa. Soon sour cream and guacamole found their way into these tasty, foil-wrapped monsters.

The origin of the first Mission burrito is worth investigating and luckily the HEAD Society needs go no further than San Francisco’s Mission District (Mission burrito. Get it?). There are two taquerias claiming to have produced first of the line.

Story #1 – On September 26, 1961, a group of hungry firefighters stopped by El Faro (the Lighthouse) on Folsome Street. The owner, Febronio Ontiveros, created something special. His giant burrito became a hit and the style spread far and wide.

Story #2 – On September 29, 1969, a small taqueria on Valencia Street abandoned the thin, simple burrito and rolled up a new “little donkey” that broke with the past. That taqueria, La Cumbre (the best, the peak) is credited with launching a culinary movement.

Who has the best burrito? Who was first? The HEAD Society is taking this historical mystery head-on!

                            

Join us on Saturday, September 17, 2011 at 5:30pm to begin the quest. HEAD Society members will gather at the Monk’s Kettle (3141 16^th Street, on the corner of Albion between Valencia & Guerrero). It’s just a short walk from the Mission & 16^th BART station. Monk’s Kettle has 25 beers on tap. Need I say more?

At around 6pm, we’ll walk down to Valencia Street and into La Cumbre (515 Valencia St.) for our first taste of history. Next stop will be El Faro (2399 Folsome St.). We’ll walk down Valencia to 20^th and follow it to the corner of Folsome. It’s about .8 of a mile or about a 12-15 minute walk. Consider it urban hiking or exercise to build your appetite.

After we finish burritoizing, we’ll stroll one short block down Folsome Street to 2301and retire into The Homestead to discuss our results. The Homestead is San Francisco’s 4^th oldest saloon which opened in 1902. It survived Prohibition by ignoring it. Our kind of place. If you can’t make the whole journey, join us anywhere along the path. HEAD Society membership cards will be distributed.