Timeline of the burrito

The timeline of the burrito documents the use of the burrito, a food made with tortillas and filling found in Mexico and the United States. 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.
16th century
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.
19th century
;1840: Burrito created in 1840s American Southwest/Northwestern Mexico. Spiced meat wrapped in flour tortillas made popular by gold miners who worked with burros. Janey M. Rifkin in Hispanic Times Magazine claims this was the original source of meat.
;1895: The term appears in the Diccionario de Mejicanismos, identified as a regional term from Guanajuato and defined as "Tortilla arrollada, con carne ú otra cosa dentro, que en Yucatán llaman coçito, i en Cuernavaca i en Mejico, taco" (A rolled tortilla with meat or other ingredients inside, called 'coçito' in Yucatan and 'taco' in Cuernavaca and Mexico).
20th century
;1923: Alejandro Borquez opens Sonora cafe in Los Angeles, later renamed El Cholo Spanish Cafe. According to Andrew F. Smith, food historian and editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, burritos first appeared on American restaurant menus at the El Cholo Spanish Cafe during the 1930s.
;1934: The burrito is mentioned in the U.S. media for first time, appearing in Mexican Cookbook, a collection of regional recipes from New Mexico authored by historian Erna Fergusson.
:Restaurente del Bol Corona opens in Tijuana, Mexico.
;1949: Restaurant Xochimilco opens in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico
;1954: Burritos appear on menu at El Tepeyac in East Los Angeles. They are served on plates and offered smothered (with sauce)
;1956: At the age of 19, Duane R. Roberts invents the first commercial frozen burrito for Butcher Boy Food Products
;1961:
:Sept. 26: Febronio Ontiveros offers the first retail burrito in San Francisco at El Faro ("The Lighthouse"), and is credited with inventing the "super burrito" style leading to the early development of the San Francisco burrito: the addition of rice, sour cream and guacamole to the basic meat, bean and cheese burrito. Originally a corner grocery store located at 2399 Folsom Street, El Faro got its start when firemen from a nearby station requested sandwiches. Unable to make them, Ontiveros offered burritos instead. Large tortillas were unavailable in the early 1960s, so three six-inch tortillas were used to hold the filling, and sold for one US dollar.
;1964: Butcher Boy Food Products begins selling frozen bean and beef burritos, first to American Drive-in restaurants with deep-fryers; then later to school districts, food-service companies, and convenience stores
;1965: Mi Rancho market sells burritos in the deli in SF
;1969: Raul Duran opens La Cumbre taqueria and offers the first assembly line burrito in SF
;1980: Butcher Boy Food Products producing over one million frozen burritos a day
;1982: Gary Espinoza opens Taqueria Pancho Villa in SF, notable for featuring four distinct salsas: red (secret recipe) and green (cilantro, jalapeño and tomatillo blend) on the tables, and hot and mild salsas added to the burrito itself behind the counter (tomato, onion, cilantro, green jalapeño and salt).
;1989: Inspired by San Francisco "Mission-style taquerias", Peter Fox and Eric Sklar open Burrito Brothers in Washington D.C.
;1990: Taco Bell, Carl's Jr. add breakfast burrito to morning menu
;1991: 100 burrito establishments in Mission District
:Skyline Chili adds burritos to menu
:Food editor Patti Jean Birosik publishes The Burrito Book
;1992: Taqueria Pancho Villa begins offering "tofu burrito"
:Influenced by San Francisco taquerias and burritos, Beth Frumoff founds Chipotle Mexican Grill in Denver, Colorado.
;1998: Washington Post sends Peter Fox to search for origins of burrito
;1999
:Aug: Comic strip cartoonist Scott Adams, CEO of Scott Adams Foods, launches the Dilberito line of frozen, vegetarian burritos
21st century
;2001: -long burrito made in Mexico and listed in the Guinness Book of World Records
;2002: University of Texas Press publishes Daniel D. Arreola's Tejano South Texas, a cultural geography of Tejano South Texas. The book delineates the South Texas Mexican food region using a "taco-burrito" and "taco-barbecue" line of demarcation. To the west of this line, Mexican food served in a flour tortilla is often called a burrito, due to the influence of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. To the south and east of this line, the same food may be simply called a taco, showing a "Texas Mexican" influence. To the north, the food gives way to barbecue sandwiches reflecting the influx of European, Southern Anglo, and African Americans.
;2003: Charles Hodgkins begins gathering data from 170 taquerias in San Francisco for Burritoeater.com
;2005: Burritophile.com launches
:Jul: Rubio's (CA) Lobster Burrito lawsuit. Rubio's is accused of selling a "lobster burrito" that contains langostino meat from the squat lobster, an edible crustacean but not a lobster, raising questions about labeling lobster meat.
;2006
:Jan: The Burrito Project begins in Los Angeles, California, feeding burritos to the homeless. In November, the project takes off on MySpace and spreads around the world, and in early 2007, the group is awarded a $10,000 MySpace Impact Award for serving "as an instrument of community action on behalf of the needy."
:Jul 29: Moe's Southwest Grill (FL) starts annual competitive burrito eating contest
:Oct. 30: After hearing expert testimony, Massachusetts judge rules that a burrito is not a sandwich
;2007
:Jan: In honor of Elvis Presley, Taco Villa offers peanut butter and banana burritos.
:Sept. 22: Competitive eater eats 10.75 burritos in 12 minutes, beating out and winning US$3,000 at the Costa Vida World Burrito Eating Championship in South Portland, Maine. Costa Vida's "Big Kahuna" burritos weighed 18 ounces, consisting of rice, beans, cheese and sweet pork in a flour tortilla. previously held the world record (15 burritos in eight minutes) but did not return to defend his title.

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