I know the word burrito means little donkey in Spanish. Wrapping food in flat bread is age old. I imagine that millennia ago there was an Egyptian who did this because he was late getting to work on the pyramids. But, who created the burrito and what did that have to do with donkeys?

Burritos are called burritos because a man called Juan Mendez wrap his food in flour tortillas in order to keep it warm and transport it on his small donkey. The word burrito comes from burro which translate to “little donkey” in Spanish.

Once upon a time, in Ciudad Juárez, during the Mexican Revolution, a guy called Juan Méndez used to sell food in a small stand. To keep the food warm, he wrapped it in a giant tortilla. It is believed that the name came because, when the demand grew, he crossed the Rio Grande with a little donkey to sell them.

Juan Méndez, a street vendor in Chihuahua, Mexico, invented the burrito. During the Mexican Revolution in the 1910s, Méndez decided to wrap his food in flour tortillas to keep it warm and transport it on his small donkey. He then realized that wrapping the food in a tortilla was tasty and a good way to serve it.

People from a northwestern state of Mexico, called Sonora, invented the burrito because of its mobility. Burritos in Mexico at the time were not as stuffed and full as they are today in the United States, so they were extremely easy to travel with. This influenced the burrito’s name because it was the donkey’s sidekick in travel.

The burrito was invented in Ciudad Juarez in the 1940s by a street vendor. He portioned the food and wrapped it in a tortilla, making it appropriate for school children, whom he referred to as “burritos” because he believed they were unintelligent.

I copied text as I found it… LOL. Is there a lesson contained in this? Don’t trust everything you find on the internet? Perhaps Wikipedia (link) is a little closer to the truth.