An army, Napoleon observed, marches on its stomach.  The Overthinking It army, on the other hand, rolls along on cylinders of fresh flour tortilla, stuffed to bursting with a delicious melange of beans, rice, meat, salsa, pico-de-gallo, sour cream, and who knows what else.  Today’s Think Tank will attempt to answers perhaps the most important question facing our society today:  what should I get in my burrito?

We are very pleased this week to welcome a very special celebrity judge!*  Based on your feedback, we may invite** more celebrity judges in the future, so sound off in the comments and let us know, y’hear?

* Note:  no real celebrities were harmed, or involved, in the creation of this blog post.

** i.e. impersonate.

Barbacoa (shredded, spicy, barbeque beef)—Lee

My mouth is literally watering as I write this.

I was unaware of barbacoa until Chipotle introduced it as a menu item a few years ago. Barbacoa blows away the other meat competition (chicken, pork, beef) for two important reasons: 1) it’s packed with crazy spices (chipotle adobo, cumin, cloves, garlic and oregano) and 2) it’s tender and moist beyond my ability to describe in written words. Notice the pool of grease juice in which the meat resides. That’s concentrated awesomeness.

NOM NOM NOM NOM

As if I needed any additional proof of barbacoa’s superiority, I brought the statistics with me. Read ‘em and weep. For a single 5 oz serving, barbacoa packs the following:

Calories: 285

Calories From Fat: 143

Fat: 16g

Barbacoa is the leading meat on all three statistics.

But perhaps more important than barbacoa’s standalone prowess is how its abundantly flowing grease juice affects other ingredients. Just like a superstar athlete who makes his/her teammates play at a higher level, barbacoa enhances the other ingredients with its flavor and moistness. It kicks the entire burrito up a notch. Barbacoa. It’s the LeBron James of burrito ingredients.

Sour cream—Perich

The basic burrito contains refried beans, Mexican rice and meat of some sort. That’s all a burrito needs to be a burrito by definition. These three ingredients are enough to make the burrito a culinary masterpiece, appealing to such a wide variety of tastes and textures that it becomes baroque. You can dial up various settings on the tri-cornered Spicy / Hearty / Chewy spectrum by adding salsa, additional meats or guacamole.

The genius of sour cream, however, is that it steps entirely outside of the paradigm. You wouldn’t think that a burrito needed something cool, sweet or colloidal in texture. But without sour cream, a burrito’s just mindless indulgence. It lacks the descant, highlighting it at the top of the scale. No burrito is complete without an ingredient that is not spicy, hearty or chewy. And only sour cream fits that mold.

The culinary equivalent of Guernica

A burrito can be assembled without sour cream. But it’s never truly perfect without it.

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