Dimitri wrote:

> The headline in Popular Mechanics magazine saluted a manufacturing triumph
> in Los Angeles: "Tortillas Meet the Machine Age." It was 1950, and the El
> Zarape Tortilla Factory, among the first to automate the production of
> tortillas, had used a tortilla-making machine for three years.

Mass produced Mexican food lacks one essential ingredient. No matter
what it tastes like, it likes the *love* a mother or wife or sister or
even a male cook might put into the preparation of a snack for one's
family.

Reading about tortillas flying out of a tortilla machine reminded me of
a video I saw about a visit to the El Monterey burrito factory. I can
buy 4 or 5 El Monterrey burritos for a buck at the 99 Cents Only Store,
but, having seen them made, I don't much want to eat one at any price.

The video showed about 200 pounds of hamburger being cooked all at once
and chile powder was thrown by the shovel full into a giant vat with an
automatic valve at the bottom.

Tortillas passed under the valve and the vat extruded a blob of burrito
filling onto each passing tortilla and the process reminded me of the
horrified Sigourney Weaver watching the Mother Alien laying its eggs in
its nest inside the dome of the ruined colony on the distant planet
where the first Alien movie started.

We all know what happened to the crew of the Nostromo...

The blobbed tortillas then passed down the line to a group of unsmiling
Mexican ladies who, the video explained, could deftly fold about 15
burritos per minute.

And that's all the *love* those burritos ever get.

The next step was the insertion (by machine, of course) of the folded
burrito into an endless tube of brightly printed plastic, which was
then heat sealed by a machine, the wrapper was cut from the endless
tube and the finished burritos fell into boxes to go to the freezers.