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On the border, the perfect burrito is a thin, foil-wrapped treasure

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By Pati Jinich, The New York Times

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico — One bite of a chile verde con papas burrito at Burritos Sarita in Ciudad Juárez has the power to shatter whatever preconceived notions you have about burritos. In it, a pillowy-soft flour tortilla, with hints of smoke from the griddle, swaddles a fragrant mix of tender potatoes, caramelized onions and fire-roasted chile verde that is coated in a salty and tangy thick crema.

From start to finish, the tin-foiled treasure is delicate and neat. Burrito renditions far from this border city tend to be overstuffed, oversized, overdressed and overblown. But here, a purist burrito, as locals call it, has only what it needs: one tortilla, one filling.

“It is our hallmark,” said Paty Covarrubias, the food truck’s general manager, of burritos’ importance to the city. She has been working for her aunt Sarita Alfaro’s business since she was 14.

“My tía taught me you have to know how to make every part of the burrito yourself,” she said. Covarrubias had been up since 3:50 a.m. preparing daily guisados, or stews, and kneading flour tortillas before opening at 8:30 a.m.

Just across the Rio Grande, this quintessential comida fronteriza — border food — is just as integral to the cultural identity of El Paso, Texas, Juárez’s sister city in the United States.

“You can count on someone eating a burrito every second of every hour of every day here,” said Steve Vasquez, the owner and burrito maker at La Colonial Tortilla Factory in El Paso. The tortillería sells as many as 800 burritos on any given morning.

No one questions that Juárez is the birthplace of burritos, though there are competing origin stories. Some attribute their creation to Juan Mendez, who sold guisados wrapped in flour tortillas from a donkey-pulled buggy — a burrito — during the Mexican Revolution. Others say they were born of the workers who took these wraps on the go and then called them burritos because they resembled the rolled blankets that sat atop donkeys in the fields. Some say they were named after children who helped women carry their shopping — endearingly nicknamed burritos — and paid with these wraps.

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