Debo's Spicy Black Bean Burrito

Hand-held take-out foods like the burrito have a long history. Before the Spanish colonization of the Americas, indigenous peoples were eating hand-held snack foods like corn on the cob, popcorn and pemmican. In Mexico, the Spanish observed Aztecs selling take-out foods like tamales, tortillas, and sauces in open marketplaces. The Pueblo people of the desert Southwest also made tortillas with beans and meat sauce fillings prepared much like the modern burrito we know today.

Cuisine preceding the development of the modern taco, burrito, and enchilada was created by the Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican Aztec peoples of Mexico, who used tortillas to wrap foods, with fillings of chile sauce, tomatoes, mushrooms, squash, and avocados. Spanish missionaries like Bernardino de Sahagún wrote about Aztec cuisine, describing the variety of tortillas and their preparation, noting that the Aztecs not only used corn in their tortillas, but also squash and amaranth, and that some varieties used turkey, eggs, or honey as a flavoring.

The word "burrito" appears in the 1895 Diccionario de Mexicanismos, where it is identified as a regional term from Guanajuato and defined as "Tortilla arrollada, con carne u otra cosa dentro, que en Yucatán llaman coçito,y en Cuernavaca y en Mexico, taco" (A rolled tortilla with meat or other ingredients inside, called 'coçito' in Yucatan and 'taco' in the city of Cuernavaca and in Mexico City). This 1895 publication date discredits an apocryphal etymology that the word “burrito” originated during the Mexican Revolution period (1910–1921) in reference to the donkey of one Juan Mendez, a burrito vendor in Ciudad Juárez.

The word burrito means "little donkey" in Spanish, coming from burro, which means "donkey". The name burrito possibly derives from the appearance of a rolled up wheat tortilla, which vaguely resembles the ear of its namesake animal, or from bedrolls and packs that donkeys carried. In some areas, such as the Lower Rio Grande Valley, they are called patos, meaning "ducks", again presumably derived from their appearance (cf. Golubtsy).

In 1923, Alejandro Borquez opened the Sonora cafe in Los Angeles, which later changed its name to the El Cholo Spanish Cafe. Burritos first appeared on American restaurant menus at the El Cholo Spanish Cafe during the 1930s. Burritos were mentioned in the U.S. media for the first time in 1934, appearing in the Mexican Cookbook, a collection of regional recipes from New Mexico authored by historian Erna Fergusson.

By http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burrito#History

Debo's Spicy Black Bean Burrito 
2012, Debo, Christine's Pantry. All rights reserved.

Ingredients:

1/2 large red onion, diced

7 green onions, finely chopped

1 (8.5 oz) whole grain brown and wild rice (I used Uncle Ben's 90 second rice)

1 (8.5 oz) whole grain roasted garlic rice (I used Uncle Ben's 90 second rice)

1 (15.25 oz) can jalapeno refried beans

1 (15 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 (4 oz) can green chile peppers, diced

1 (8 3/4 oz ) can whole kernel corn, drained

large flour tortillas

1 teaspoon cilantro

1/2 cup chipotle enchilada sauce

Directions:

Cook rice according to package directions. In sauce pan, over medium heat, add refried beans and chipotle sauce, stir well. Stir in black beans, corn, green chiles, green onions, red onions and cilantro. Cook until heated through.

To build, place bean mixture in the center of tortilla, then add rice. To roll them up, tuck in sides. And roll'em up, trying to keep them as tight as possible. Enjoy!

Cooks note: These burritos will freeze well.

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