Chimichanga

[skchai]

Noticing zero threads in this new forum, I couldn't help taking the opportunity to start the first one.

The chimichanga is sometimes viewed as the prototypical Tucson dish. While the cheese crisp and the topopo salad also contend for this title, they can hardly measure up to the chimi in terms of ubiquity and national prominence. Not surprisingly, a number of restaurants claim to have invented it. The most famous is El Charro, but Micha's and at least one more Tucson restaurant whose name I forget also claim to be the inventors. Somewhat more dubiously, Macayo's of Phoenix also claims to have invented it.

Most suspiciously of all, they all claim to have invented it in the same way: by accidentally dropping a burro (Arizona / Sonoran name for burrito) into a pot of hot oil. This allegedly mode of invention clearly marks off all the stories as apocryphal, since "accidentally" inventing a dish by dropping something into something else is perhaps the most common food origin myth of then all. Furthermore, the idea of frying a burro is obvious enough that presumably the dish had been around in some version or another for a long time before any of these restaurants existed.

So if not the dish, how about the name? Interestingly, it's possible to find chimichangas South of Nogales, but they're usually called "chivichangas". Any ideas of how long the dish has been sold in Arizona, and when did it begin being called the chimichanga? Carlotta Flores of El Charro claims that until a couple of decades ago, they were usually called "fried burros", though elsewhere she credits her grandmother, Monica Flin. with coining the name long before that. What gives?

And perhaps a better question: what's the proper filling for a chimichanga? Anything that can go in a burro? Or only machaca? Carne seca?

[estherschindler]

Any ideas of how long the dish has been sold in Arizona, and when did it begin being called the chimichanga? Carlotta Flores of El Charro claims that until a couple of decades ago, they were usually called "fried burros", though elsewhere she credits her grandmother, Monica Flin. with coining the name long before that. What gives?

And perhaps a better question: what's the proper filling for a chimichanga? Anything that can go in a burro? Or only machaca? Carne seca?

I'm not exactly sure when the chimichanga came to be (much less who's responsible for accidentally dropping a burro in a vat of oil), but I have a Jane Butel Tex-Mex cookbook that I bought in 1981 that refers to it as a Tucson specialty... and with wording that implies that it's not (yet) well known.

I've had chimis filled with almost anything you'd put in a stew, though the most common are a chicken guisado (basically a chicken-chili-onion stew), machaca beef, and -- in the last couple of years -- fajita filling.

My favorite restaurant for chimichangas, at least in Phoenix, is Manuel's -- it's a local chain with maybe 6 or 7 restaurants. The one on 28th Street and Indian School is the original, I think, but all of them are good. Anyway, they serve a chimi "norteno style" with a chicken filling, enchilada sauce, guac and sour cream. Pretty darned good, and I think it's about $10.

Least favorite, at least in recent memory: Los Olivos. They don't do anything to the chicken at all, so the filling is rather flat.

But if you have to look for a chimichanga outside Arizona... well, don't go to Ellsworth, Maine. We lived there for nearly 7 years, moving to an island off the coast initally because of a job offer.

As you might imagine, after having lived in Phoenix for 4 years, we pined for Mexican food, so at the first opportunity we drove up to Ellsworth to "The Mex." My husband ordered a chimichanga, and should have known something was wrong when they asked him if he wanted it with barbecue sauce.

What he got was a plain flour tortilla (not fried, or anything) wrapped around some chicken, which I swear wa a can of Swanson's chicken. Because he said he wanted it spicy (not something we're used to being asked), they carefully laid three slices of jalapeno on top.

We learned to cook our own Mexican food, after that. I make a pretty good chimi, but it's a real mess.

[Katherine]

I had one in South Portland, Maine, when I was going to school there, so it must have been about 1975, when I graduated. At that point I had never heard of it before.

So look in Tucson before then.

[docsconz]

I heard it was created by a guy named "Kokopelli"

[Jaymes]

As as aside, when I lived in Tucson some twenty-five years ago, I recall asking someone at El Charro what "chimichanga" means, since I never before had heard the word. She said that there was really no exact English translation but that it was kind of like "thingamajig."