brain burrito

From McSweeney's: Reviews of New Food

Brain Burrito

Submitted by Alex MacInnis

On the board at the burrito stand across from the high school, the choices get more hardcore as you move down the list. We'd been working our way down, a burrito a day after school, seeing who would stop where. I didn't enjoy the tongue burrito, but Dave ate one, too, and said he wasn't stopping. I was pretty bummed to hear that. The next day, we ordered two brain burritos. A couple of guys we knew came over to watch.

I tried to eat around the brain and get big mouthfuls of the beans, but you can't really eat only one side of a burrito. We were standing in the parking lot, and I wasn't gonna ask for a plate and fork. They give you a tub of salsa, but I'd already used all of that.

There's no taste at all—it's like food that was left on a grave overnight for an ancestor and then you actually go back and try to eat it in the morning and it tastes drained. It's just like eating a burrito of gray fat. Every bite, you ask yourself, "What on earth am I eating?!" and your brain races to inform you: "It's BRAIN, IDIOT! It's BRAIN!"

Each of us was only eating as fast as the other guy, and these were pretty big burritos. They probably hadn't sold much brain the last couple of days and were trying to use it up. Once we hit about the two-thirds mark, we just agreed to stop without talking about it much. It felt lame to waste all that brain, though.