My Burger or Burrito Genetics

BURGER OR BURRITO? Which are you? Maybe you didn’t know that all people can be divided along these culinary categories. They can. Grab something to munch on while I explain it all to you.

When people reveal themselves to me by their habits, I sort. It’s a coping mechanism, a sort of personal taxonomy that keeps things straight by dividing them—in this case, people—into categories. I bet you have one of these, as well, a method for dividing people into categories. Care to share?

So, which are you? Are you comfortable in a mere bun, letting the sun shine on your sides, your condiments visible to all? If so, you’re a burger. Or do you need your ingredients tightly wrapped? Everybody is one or the other. I’m a burger, my sister being the burrito of the family. I married a burrito and we have a burrito for a child. Only our dog is the other burger in my life, and I’m glad he’s here, surrounded as I am by these mightily-cinched-up humans.

This food metaphor thing isn’t all that out there, at least not if you remember your Mendel, that being Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, who experimented with 30,000 peas, growing them and cross-pollinating them to explain dominant and recessive qualities in us all. The man knew his peas.

Mendel, a burrito, was interested in our ingredients, giving us the answers to many of the questions Charles Darwin, a burger, posed. See how this works? And it would take a burger like me to transpose the whole thing to asking the question of how we reveal or conceal our make-ups–bun or tortilla? I can see my older sister rolling her eyes, especially when I state flat out that all older sisters are burritos and the next sisters are always burgers. Third sisters, fourth? Let me hear from you.

Like me, do you think of the womb as a great genetic pantry, providing and parsing out to each child a distinct different stew? And if so, does that make the environment in which we are raised nothing less than a great big test kitchen?

I can push this metaphor around my plate all day long, particularly since it occurred to me while I was cooking. Viewed as food for thought, families become a whole lot less dicey and a lot more palatable, if only emotionally. Bun or tortilla? Burger or burrito? After you know which you are, the only other thing to decide is if you want fries.