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Engineering students create edible adhesive tape to keep burrito wrapped tightly
- almog 4y agoI'd guess it might be an upgraded Nori?
- pengaru 4y agoWell that sure looks appetizing.
- Justin_K 4y agoI see the opening pic with a cold, raw tortilla and thought, they're already doing it wrong. Go to a good Mexican restaurant and learn how to prepare food properly, then you'll see this tape is unnecessary. Maybe I'm spoiled in CA but this is a solution vin search of a problem.
- Jason_Protell 4y agoA young girl created "Edible Taco Tape" over 20 years ago. Her invention was featured on the Nickelodeon show Figure It Out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLFjuVyP_n0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLFjuVyP_n0
- systemvoltage 4y agoA burrito is just a rolled up large Taco. Bring downvotes.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y agoYou understand neither burritos nor tacos.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- systemvoltage 4y agoGo ahead. Explain yourself.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y agoA taco is a small, to be held in the hand, street food predating the Spanish empire in southern Mexico and central america (Parker, 2006). It is composed of a small amount of meat or fish on a corn flatbread, usually with some amount of pico de gallo or salsa, and often with lime over it. Some key elements is that its a 'single ingredient' dish, it be hand held, and it be served fresh (traditionally as street food). Carne asada, al pastor, fried fish, etc. represent reasonable taco fillings and are not 'combined' with other, filler type ingredients, like beans or rice. There is another mexican dish, the tostada which incorporates those ingredients. A tostada is not a taco. A taco needs to be able to be picked up and eaten with one hand. That means it can not be over filled and it shouldn't be. If you want more food, order more tacos. A burrito is as well a single ingredient food (read: no fillers like beans and rice unless that is specifically the single ingredient in the burrito). The primary difference is that a burrito is usually on flour tortillas and is wrapped to be held with two hands, often having substantially more content than a taco, which is specifically intended to be eaten with one hand. The biggest criticism I'm raising is the American (outside of border states like CA, AZ, NM, and TX where they don't put up with that shit) tendency to accept cheaper, filler ingredients as primary to the contents of a burrito. This is a serious departure, where in border states and mexico, burritos might come with rice and beans on the side, they are never substituted as primary ingredients. The broadest point is that there are many many ways of combining some filling, tortillas, and other ingredients. Just because it has those components does not a taco or burrito make. Parker, 2006, https://web.archive.org/web/20080502160526/http://www.iccjournal.biz/StudentScholars/Undergraduate/history_of_mexican_cuisine.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20080502160526/http://www.iccjou...
- systemvoltage 4y agoHolyshit, I concede! This is peak HN :-). Thanks for the lesson honestly.
- bbkane 4y ago
- dgellow 4y agoAren’t tacos very different things in different places? You and the person you answer to may be talking past each other if you have a different idea of what a tacos is in your mind. Just for the anecdote, I’m back from France and tacos there are a weird sandwich. But I’ve always seen them made using a hard-shell made of corn, that breaks way too easy. And I believe that’s considered heretic in the US, so I’m not even sure what you would expect an actual tacos to be!
- ghaff 4y ago>But I’ve always seen them made using a hard-shell made of corn, that breaks way too easy. And I believe that’s considered heretic in the US Certainly not heretic. You'll find hard-shell corn tacos in pretty much any US grocery store. They do break easily but they're what I would tend to use for a taco with ground beef. Otherwise, I'd usually use soft corn.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoI usually get two, break them up and make a taco salad, much easier to eat and less likely to ruin a shirt. If I can't set up that situation I get the soft tacos.
- dgellow 4y agoOh that's an interesting idea. Never heard of a taco salad.
- robonerd 4y agoIn America, hard-shell tacos are simultaneously heretical and popular. It's polarizing, like pineapples on pizza.
- lordnacho 4y agoMarmite is polarising, you can legitimately like or dislike it. What you're suggesting is inflammatory legitimisation of an abhorrent practice.
- pwython 4y agoI've never had a taco with beans & rice, but I guess that could be a thing.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y agoNo. It isnt. That's a tostada. There are words for these things. A tostada is made and served completely differently. Second, beans and rice have no place in a burrito and Americans who accept this from their burrito manufacturers have been being scammed for decades.
- johnfn 4y agoI mean, if we’re really going down this line of pedantry, it seems prudent to point out that burritos were first created in the United States, so that would indeed be authentic.
- shkkmo 4y agoThat would be some bad pedantry since the origin of the burrito is complicated and not nearly as clear as you suggest, the best bets place it's origin in an area currently split by the US-Mexico border. You might be thinking of the hardshell taco, which is a US invention.
- shkkmo 4y agoBurritos are highly regional and come in many different forms. There is no *one true burrito" and anybody to tries to argue there is is trying to elevate one region's definition over the others. Arguably, tostadas are defined more by the form of the flat, crispy torilla than by what you out on top of it. Beans and/or rice presence in a burrito is a regional distinction. Personally, I don't like the all meat burritos that are standard in many areas. And once you travel beyond mexico you will realize there is a whole range of food that overlaps with those categories. Is a baleada a burrito, a taco, or it's own separate thing?
- grayclhn 4y ago
- bumby 4y agoAn entry in the Diccionario de Mexicanismos says that a food item called a burrito, consisting of a rolled tortilla filled with meat and other ingredients, was popular in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. The same food was eaten in areas like Yucatan and Mexico City, where it was known as a cocito and taco, respectively. https://www.portablepress.com/blog/2018/04/history-origin-burritos/ https://www.portablepress.com/blog/2018/04/history-origin-bu...
- eyelidlessness 4y agoI will never downvote food taxonomy hot takes, no matter how wrong they are.
- hownottowrite 4y agoWatch the Taco Chronicles on Netflix then reconsider your life choices.
- gkop 4y agoAgree but it’s worth noting that Taco Chronicles did do a very generous episode on American tacos.
- mauvehaus 4y agoA taco is type 3 - taco. A Burrito is type 6 - Calzone. This is all clearly laid out here: https://cuberule.com https://cuberule.com
- hrnnnnnn 4y ago"Language is use, nerds." https://existentialcomics.com/comic/268 https://existentialcomics.com/comic/268
- mauvehaus 4y agoThank you. That was excellent!
- tialaramex 4y agoI want to be clear: Both the logical structure (let's decide which things are sandwiches using these rules) and its negation (no, it's a sandwich only because people say it's a sandwich) are great, and both are good lessons. I upvoted both :D We would all do well to be able to apply this same thinking, and not just to classifying a burrito.
- triyambakam 4y agoThat was wonderful, thank you
- mauvehaus 4y agoI found it here, and am happy to bring a smile to your face by bringing it back up for anyone who missed it :-)
- JeanMeche 4y agoYou made my day, thanks bro
- jwdunne 4y agoInteresting. The cheesecake here is nothing like ones found in the UK, which would be classified as toast!
- throwingrocks 4y agoI too enjoy trolling on HN.
- CamperBob2 4y ago
- cnasc 4y agoCame here to post this on reading the title. I remember this episode vividly
- hn_throwaway_99 4y agoAnd a patent application from 2009 https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100272864A1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/US20100272864A1/en . Maybe abandoned because of prior art?
- FiddlerClamp 4y agoI remember reading about it in a book called "More Future Stuff" from 1991. Even the Amazon blurb mentions it: https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0140145230/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1 https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0140145230/ref=dbs_a_def_rw... "...edible food tape (to hold together those messy meals like burritos)..."
- photochemsyn 4y agoLooks like fruit leather, which would probably work as well... however, it's unlikely this would be optimal for a non-dry burrito.
- greenthrow 4y agoEdible adhesives have been around forever. Another case of poor quality "science" journalism just reprinting press releases without any kind of independent validation or context.
- inglor_cz 4y agoWhat about their taste? Can they feel neutral or do they get in the way? Edit: interesting that somebody bothered to downvote a mere question. That does not seem to be very hacker-like.
- rob_c 4y agoWish they would have said. But then is it "safe" to eat a lump of the stuff, fast food standards and all...
- nobodyandproud 4y ago
- ben_w 4y agoAsking about the new one or the old ones? It would be good to know what the new one tastes/feels like. As for existing methods… well, could be a thousand different flavours and textures. For example, and obviously this isn’t what the people in the article are doing, I often use molten cheese to seal tortilla wraps in my home cooking.
- rob_c 4y ago
- TheDudeMan 4y agoThat plus readers upvoting on title alone --> front page!
- daniel-cussen 4y agoTo the other posters, maybe this has merit.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- amelius 4y agoSushi rolls also stay together pretty well, so there's probably more ways to go about it.
- xcambar 4y agoThey're called maki, specifically, if we think of the same thing.
- RosanaAnaDana 4y agoBurritos stay together perfectly fine if you know how to wrap them and use the right size tortilla for whatever size burrito you are making.
- humanistbot 4y agoA properly wrapped burrito doesn't need edible adhesive tape. Edit: Also, does the photo of the tape look a little like mold?
- vntok 4y agoSo? Evidently people who properly wrap their tacos "all the time, every time", aren't the target of such an invention.
- rubicon33 4y agoOnce you learn how to do it it’s very easy, and even helps spread the burrito contents along the inside. People really should just learn to wrap their burritos it’s fun and the dense bottom park provides a wonderful texture.
- jimmaswell 4y agoBut I assume this invention lets you make much larger burritos for the same size tortilla, which is pretty cool.
- rubicon33 4y agoAh, indeed. I am a fan of larger burritos.
- deltaonefour 4y agoThey are targets. You need to think ahead. Learned knowledge is used space. By replacing knowledge with tape you have effectively eliminated millions of gigabytes of memory wasted by thousands of burrito wrappers across the world holding this useless knowledge in their heads. While current knowledge can't be unlearned the skill of proper burrito wrapping is similar to the skill of dialing a rotary phone or using manual gear shift in a car. The future of burrito wrapping is via tape. You sound like my grandpa telling me how he walked 10 feet to school everyday instead of riding a Segway.
- rob_c 4y agoNope. Not eating that even without food dye... Enjoy the chemicals
- SteveNuts 4y agoIsn't everything a chemical?
- detritus 4y agoIgnorance isn't.
- ben_w 4y agoNot strictly everything is chemical in nature, just all the things that can physically be swallowed.
- dekhn 4y agobare subatomic particles are not chemicals.
- ihumanable 4y agoI'm trying to eat healthy, I'll take a large cup of protons please.
- rob_c 4y agoHelium gas is, but then is, Hydrogen plasma? :P
- OJFord 4y agoThis is quite a boring argument, not really to defend GP's comment, but you know what they meant. There's plenty of 'processed crap' - whatever you want to call it - that I don't want to eat that, fine sure, is no more 'chemical' than the raw ingredients I'm using at home.
- rob_c 4y agoWhy yes, everything is a chemical and by that logic everything is organic, and you can safely eat some amount of cyanide and arsenic each day. This is the same argument posed/disposed by HTC enthisuasts so thanks for joining in. Doesn't mean I really want to eat yet another new age mix of fungus mixed with whatever newfangled soy protein because someone can't do their culinary job properly, seriously mankind has been eating food without this perfectly fine, it's a solution looking for a problem.
- vinyl7 4y agoI learned how to make Samosas. They used water and flour to seal the pastry, I assume something like that could be used for burritos?
- OJFord 4y agoThat's common in all sorts of pastry, but that's done pre-bake. A burrito is (bread not pastry and) wrapped post-baking. It may help a little, but probably also unwelcome moistness at the quantity it would take to do anything.
- throwaway1777 4y agoThis is not needed if you know how to wrap a burrito correctly. Keep the training wheels on if you want.
- annoyingnoob 4y agoWhat you need is a bigger tortilla or better technique. A properly filled and wrapped burrito is already sealed enough to hold by hand to eat.
- MikeDelta 4y agoTime to update the list of adhesive tapes on Wikipedia, featured and discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31043179 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31043179
- danans 4y agoI think the Vietnamese invented something similar long ago (rice paper) and it's transparent too!
- jesuslop 4y agoThis gives a more tight monad implementation
- glitcher 4y agoI eat burritos almost daily, and I don't see this as a problem that needed solving. But perhaps it may have usefulness in other creative applications?
- tehlike 4y agoSame. I'm surprised by this invention.
- voldacar 4y agoSince you have to wet it, I assume it's made of some kind of starch?
- schwartzworld 4y agoAll the burrito places near me steam their tortillas, which seems to make them sticky enough to not require this product.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoIs that what makes them so gummy and disgusting! I never knew. Got one that way takeout, got to my office, tried to unwrap and it stuck to the wrapper and split into a gooey half-stripped burrito and half-gummed wrapper. Dropped the whole mess into the trash can and never went back.
- scollet 4y agoIt sounds like you just went to a bad restaurant or you waited too long.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoTakeout is supposed to be able to be taken out. And no, I walked two blocks to my office and opened it.
- scollet 4y agoBad restaurant
- bagels 4y agoCan also happen if there are a lot of wet or watery ingredients and it sits in a wrapper for a while.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoTwo or three minutes.
- darkblackcorner 4y ago
- izzydata 4y agoEdible tape? There are so many pre-existing foods that get sticky when wet. Like seaweed wrap.
- dieselgate 4y agoIn my personal experience flour tortillas would fall into that category
- sedatk 4y agoGastronomy of burrito is strange. Rice in a wrap doesn't sound right to me. Filling but bland. It's probably the worst type of wrap I've had. How it got so popular is a mystery to me.
- sydthrowaway 4y agoYou must be raised outside of california
- heavyset_go 4y agoIt's cheap filler.
- tehlike 4y agoMy wife and her mother sees burrito as a weird mix of everything, and argue food should be enjoyed separate. I see burrito as a delicious mix of everything and eat nearly every day these days.
- SemanticStrengh 4y agoNot all heroes wear capes
- andix 4y agoIf you do a burrito properly, it stays wrapped.
- dieselgate 4y agoYa was thinking it’s not really a necessary innovation as well
- tehsauce 4y agoI thought that was just called a tortilla?
- esjeon 4y agoI never knew this was a thing. In CJK, people use rice to make adhesive paste. This sounds like the NASA-ballpen-and-Russian-pencil story.
- aristus 4y agoThis is a bit of a hobby horse for me. I grew up in El Paso / Juárez which is arguably where the burrito was invented. The problem is that burritos these days try to pack two pounds of stuff into a one pound sack. A proper burrito is about the size and width of a baby's forearm, not the size of a whole baby. If you are hungry, eat two.
- ravenstine 4y agoOr you could just lick it before closing it.
- dzolob 4y agoAs a mexican, I feel the need to stop this madness. A taco is whatever you can put inside a tortilla (not a shell; if you are eating something in a shell, unless it’s a dry thin extended tortilla, called tostada, it’s not mexican food as found in México (mexican-american, maybe)), unless it’s a quesadilla. To be more specific, there’s the canonical taco, and there is the “pass me a tortilla and the casserole because I’m going to make me a taco”. Here, if you are holding a soft tortilla with something in it, then it’s a taco (unless it’s a quesadilla). I’ll be taking questions now :P PS. For those of you who think all mexican food is alike, our cuisine is inscribed in UNESCO’s world heritage intangibles list[0]. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/11/17/131391343/unesco-designates-traditional-french-and-mexican-cuisines-cultural-treasures https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/11/17/131391343...
- mberning 4y agoThis something that annoys me to no end at places like chipotle. People ask for extra everything (except meat, they charge for that), then at the end the poor employee is struggling valiantly to close the monstrosity. Surely that is what this tape is intended for. This behavior also leaves every other person with a shred of dignity with an undersized portion since the employees are habitualized to underserve in order to deal with all the “extra everything” people.
- colordrops 4y agoI bet it's not vegan, maybe has gelatin in it.
- krnlpnc 4y agoGross! Just use a fresh tortilla and toast the outside of the wrapped burrito and it will stick together no problem.
- Groxx 4y agoI'm honestly kinda confused why you'd put tape like this on the outside rather than use it to seal the flap like an envelope.