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In many parts of the United States, well into the nineties, there were no Taco Bell tacos. I didn't get to try Taco Bell until 1995. Growing up, Burritos were these frozen bean-paste wraps, with "meat" included sometimes, that you got from the super market and microwaved in multiple passes, until years later when Taco Bell appeared. Then after The Year 2000, some truly incredible Big Burrito shacks started popping up, with these gigantic, incredible 1.5 pound burritos, right before Chipotle began its massive expansion. Otherwise, there were some rare Spanish restaurant chains like Meson, Olé! (still around), which were sit down affairs, with what seemed like (nearly extravagant) gourmet foreign cuisine, when stood next to the frozen burritos. Their freebie table nachos were these amazing and decadent snacks as a kid. Pizza looked like neither, and gambling on pizza beyond the New York tri-state area was certainly taking a chance. I remember eating a pizza in Pennsylvania in the late 80's on one occasion, and it was hard/crunchy, almost stale-ish, cardboard-style flatbread, with "sauce" and "cheese" on top. That's the most memorable incident, but the prevailing wisdom was true: don't get Pizza outside of New York. Plain cheese brick oven pizza comes close to what people view(ed) as New York style pizza, even if you might find lots of the "original" example in NYC. Otherwise, mass produced Pizza Hut or Little Ceaser's were the only two consistent regional options for a long time, and while edible, each was a variation of "pizza" and not Pizza. |
This is the "Mission-style Burrito" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_burrito). I first encountered them in San Francisco in 1997, where I found them to be quite a novelty, even though I was coming from Texas and had a more than passing familiarity with burritos.
Chipotle has now popularized them nation-wide, of course.