Lauren Wille

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I absolutely love burritos. Steak burritos, chicken burritos, veggie burritos, you name it. Take some cheese, beans, sour cream and lettuce, wrap it inside a tortilla and you’ve got my attention for the next 20 minutes until I make it disappear.

I love Mexican food and make sure it’s in my belly at least once a week. But I am sometimes discouraged because lot of people will argue that Mexican food is redundant. They say every dish is “made with the same ingredients, just in a different form.” This assumption is whack. Although it is true that many traditional mexican dishes contain the same ingredients, such as tacos, tortas, tostadas and burritos, the way they are presented and eaten is what sets them all apart. To see this in a clearer light, let’s compare a taco and a tostada. Even though both include (depending on where you get them and how you like yours) cheese, tomatoes, sour cream, beans and meat (vegetarians not included). But notice the way they look. The taco is wrapped in a soft of hard shell and you eat it with your hands. The tostada, on the other hand, is made with a flat tortilla shell, and what I mean by flat is that it lays flat on a table like a pizza, with the beans, meat, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes (in that order) spread on top. Eating these two things are completely separate experiences.

I just want this to be understood and accepted. Mexican dining is one of the main things I look forward to.