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A Mission burrito (also known as a San Francisco burrito or a Mission-style burrito) is a type of burrito that first became popular during the 1960s in the Mission District of San Francisco, California. It is distinguished from other burritos by its large size and inclusion of rice and other ingredients. A key method to the burrito's construction is to steam the wheat flour tortilla to increase its flexibility prior to adding the other ingredients, although that is not a requirement and burritos may be grilled instead. It has been referred to as one of three major styles of burritos in the United States, following the earlier, simple burrito consisting of beans, rice, and meat. It precedes the California burrito, which was developed around the 1980s in San Diego and contains carne asada, cheese and French-fried potatoes.Kauffman, Jonathan (April 11, 2012). " Before the Mission Burrito Came the San Francisco Tamale: An Interview with Gustavo Arellano, Part 1. SF Weekly.
Many taquerías in the Mission and greater San Francisco Bay Area specialize in Mission burritos. It is typically a large flour tortilla that is wrapped and folded around a variety of ingredients, served in a piece of aluminum foil. A food critic for the San Francisco Chronicle counted hundreds of taquerias in the Bay Area, and noted that the question of which taqueria makes the best burrito can "encourage fierce loyalty and ferocious debate".Starkey, Joe (August 20, 2014). "The 12 Best Mission Burritos, as Chosen by People on Fixies", Thrillist. Retrieved November 25, 2015. New York–based writer Calvin Trillin said that the burrito in San Francisco "has been refined and embellished in much the same way that the pizza has been refined and embellished in Chicago". Since its commercial availability began in the 1960s, the style has spread widely throughout the United States and Canada.
However, like most such claims, this is debated by others who claim to remember similar burritos from earlier in the decade. If the claims of the owner of "El Faro" are true, the first San Francisco burrito was sold September 26, 1961 to a group of San Francisco firefighters, using two 6-inch tortillas in place of what later became the large single tortilla. The fact that he did not have—and had not previously considered the need for—larger tortillas suggests that the birth of the Mission burrito as we now know it did not come earlier than that time. Yet the Mission burrito does have historical forebears in burritos made elsewhere. Some assert that the original San Francisco burritos were directly inspired by burritos brought by California Central Valley UFW into the fields, then reproduced in the city. One restaurant consultant remembered his teen years in the fields in the 1960s this way:
Other burrito researchers trace the burrito's ancestry even further back to miners of the 19th century. The first printed references to burritos came in the 1930s; in the 1950s and 1960s, versions of the burrito spread through the American Southwest and beyond.
But while the Mexican-American burrito began as a wider regional phenomenon, most would agree that the Mission burrito emerged as a recognizable and distinct local culinary movement during the 1970s and 1980s. One writer asserts that the Mission burrito—a large, compact and quite cheap meal—played a special role for those who lived through the local economic recession of the 1980s and early 1990s.
The rhetoric of burrito politics underscores the role of the Mission burrito in both bohemianism and Chicano culture in San Francisco, as evidenced by a 1993 article published in the SF Weekly, featuring Chicano Studies professor Jose Cuellar.
Some New York establishments advertise "Cal-Mex" or "San Francisco style" burritos. Two chains of Boston taquerias (Anna's Taqueria and Boca Grande Taqueria) are directly modeled after a local Bay Area chain, and other burrito businesses also cite the influence of San Francisco burritos.
Burritos made in the San Francisco style can be found in other cities across the United States.
A small chain of establishments have been appearing in the UK under the name "Mission Burrito" selling Mission-style burritos in Oxford, Reading, and Bristol and Bath. While The Good Gringo, a collection of restaurants in Stockholm, Sweden, claims to serve "authentic San Francisco 'MISSION' style burritos".
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