Baked by Mark Haskell Smith

Author:Mark Haskell Smith [Smith, Mark Haskell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2010-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

31

ROLLING A BURRITO is harder than it looks. You have to warm the tortilla to make it pliable, pile on the right amount of ingredients—too many and you won’t get a good fold, too wet and the tortilla will self-destruct—roll the tortilla over, tuck in the ends, and then wrap it tight enough so it won’t fall apart yet loose enough that the salsa can circulate.

It had only taken Daniel a couple of days to get the hang of it and now he could roll a burrito with his eyes closed. He was fast, too. Lenny, the stocky Mexican who owned the taco truck, called him “Ramoncito” in honor of the speedy winger for Chivas. Daniel had tried to get Lenny to tell him something about Miro, but Lenny had the magical ability to be selectively unable to understand or speak English depending on who he was talking to or what he was talking about. Miro seemed to be involved in the business but he was never there. Lenny said he was a silent partner. A socio comanditario. That’s all Daniel could get.

If being a Mormon missionary had been an exercise in being ignored, snubbed, sneered at, and ridiculed, working on the burrito truck was the complete opposite. People said hi. They smiled. They were happy to see him. The regulars learned his nickname.

Daniel felt loved. Like he was a part of something special. His burritos made people feel good. They brought happiness to their lives. Wasn’t that part of his mission? To offer comfort to people in need? It occurred to Daniel that people didn’t need dogma, religion, or special underwear; people needed a good burrito.

Since he still hadn’t heard anything from his LDS mission sponsors and he’d stopped going to church, Daniel spent his free time at the library researching the history of the burrito. He was fascinated by the conflicting accounts, the legends and urban myths of the birth of the burrito. Some claimed the burrito originated in the sixteenth century, when Aztecs wrapped meats in tortillas as a way to make food portable for travelers, traders, and warriors. Others credited a man named Juan Mendez who, in Ciudad Juarez circa 1912, sold food from containers on the back of his donkey. He wrapped his meats in flour tortillas to keep them warm. Hence “burrito,” which means “little donkey.”

But to Daniel, the burrito seemed to be more than just a portable lunch. It was, in some strange way, similar to the Holy Trinity, the Godhead.

Three separate and distinct beings who are one in purpose.

In church Daniel had learned about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. On the taco truck he learned to fill a burrito with a different kind of trinity: grilled meat, rice, and refried beans. He wasn’t sure how to classify the salsa, but he knew that to eat it, packed as it was with fiery habaneros, was to take a leap of faith.

Daniel thought that if God had put him on Earth

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