Boojum or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Burrito
“Em, could I, em, could I get a burrito please, with no sour cream?” I’m desperately nervous. This process seems so easy for the people ahead of me in the line, yet I’m stumbling over my words, flapping the menu card about in my hands like a lunatic. I want a burrito with chicken and mild tomato salsa, no sour cream. I think that’s all the options covered. For some reason though, I’m finding it very difficult to say.
“Sorry.” I’m very embarrassed but the lady behind the counter could hardly be any nicer. If we were not separated by wells of exotic Mexican flavours, I can only assume that she would have given me a hug.
“First time?” She smiles in the most comforting way. “It isn’t that hard. Listen, I’ll help you. Would you like pinto beans or black beans?”
“Em…” I hadn’t picked a bean when I previously scanned the menu.
“The pinto beans have a juicy texture and a smooth, smoky flavour. They’re really delicious. The black beans are a bit different. They’re more…”
I’m amazed at how nice the people at Boojum are. Five minutes ago I jumped off the Luas at Jervis wondering why the burrito had taken over Dublin city, why I was now going for one, and why I was so nervous. I was late to the burrito party, really late, and it was pretty uncool. Making my way around to Millenium Walkway, I feel like everybody knows that I’m here to lose my burrito virginity. Everybody is cool here; they’re all eating burritos. Right now, it doesn’t matter that I know about obscure hip hop from the early nineties, because I don’t know the difference between pinto beans and black beans.
“Pinto sounds good. Could I have some pinto beans please?” I am aware that I sound like a simpleton. I never ask for directions, I never read the instruction manual and I never ever let on that I don’t know what I’m doing. However, right now I am unable to bluff. I need to learn.
- Fig 25.1: Boojum, Millenium Walkway.
“Good stuff. See, it isn’t hard at all. Any meat?”
“Chicken please.” I had decided this earlier when I checked out the Boojum website. Their menu is online, along with lots of information about them and the food. When the burrito was invented in 2008, or whenever, the internet became its godfather. Burritos & Blues, Wexford Street, tweeted me only a few days ago to tell me that they’d be delighted if they could introduce me to Mexican food. Pablo Picanté, with a Baggot Street ‘casa’ and another on Clarendon Market, nearly got me with their website alone. All of these places have an internet presence, which is probably someway responsible for the burrito’s popularity with a middle-class ‘alt’ audience. Boojum won because one of my mates said that it was his favourite. I suppose nothing spreads popularity like some old-fashioned word of mouth.
Two more ladies help me in the process, each as lovely as the first. The food conveyor belt eventually leaves me with a chicken burrito with pinto beans, tomato salsa and grated cheese. No sour cream for me. With a bottle of soft drink, I get decent change from my tenner and, finally, it is dinner time.
Sitting outside on the terrace of Millenium Walkway, I marvel at the size of what I’m about to eat. This really is a meal. I would like a weighing-scales right now. It is a giant package of food, food that I can only assume is relatively good for you. This is not only cheaper than a Burger King meal; it won’t leave me contemplating an hour in the gym as penance. And then you eat.
My mind is blown. Where have you been, Mr Burrito? Or, where have I been? For a second I feel a mild regret that I waited so long, but it vanishes because now I know. I suddenly understand everything. It all makes so much sense. This is amazing. I can only imagine that this is how the quiet girl in class felt when, for the very first time, she got scaldy drunk and danced like her hair was on fire. There was no going back for her then.
All that flavour is perfect. The subtly smoky pinto beans compliment the grilled chicken; sautéed peppers and onions mesh with the tomato salsa and rice as the cheese melts into everything else. Everything here has a place, it all fits. Every single bite gives a little kick because each individual ingredient has a purpose. The chicken, for example, is seasoned and cooked in its own special way. So when you take a bite of your burrito, you experience that. Similarly, the tomato salsa, the mildest option according to the staff at Boojum, is not just level one salsa, sauce for beginners; it is a delight of flavour in its own right. So when it all comes together in this genius package, you get it all. Any single bite is guaranteed to be interesting, to give you something.
I force myself to finish it. I’m completely stuffed, which is quite a feat. Leaning back, I take a deep breath and treasure all the goodness in my belly. I feel cool now, in a very gluttonous way. Or less uncool.
“So?” My company for the evening, an experienced burrito man, looks for a reaction. He smiles. He knew all along. I stopped talking after my first bite and haven’t said anything since. Thanks, Boojum.
No, it isn’t my fault. Since when were we all economists?
- As long as there is chocolate on the shelf, somebody is liable to eat it. As long as there is cash on the go, somebody is liable to take it.
Internationally, the emergence of the incredibly easy-to-use word, ’Bailout,’ now a term of everyday parlance among everyday people, has seen the common man become an economist of extreme convictions. On a national level, we have the delightfully chewable acronym, ‘NAMA.’ Couple that gem with general group terms like ‘the bankers’ and ‘the developers,’ there has been a lot for the coffee/smoke break economist to spit about over the last year or so. People who once talked about film and music that they scarcely understood now speak of financial policy.
With buzz words and hate figures holstered and ready for action in an instant, it is easy to forget the very systems we live within. For all that we’re discussing NAMA, bankers and governments, big, venerable old words like ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ are forgotten. Of course, within systems that are quite comfortable for and accommodating to those who might have influence in such discussions, it is hardly likely that the broad cultures of greed that are encouraged by spectacle orientated capitalism will be opened up to a public tribunal. While we are outraged at individuals and rightly demand the execution of their characters, Ivor Callely and ‘the bankers’ most recently, investigations of the systems that foster greed culture are not called for.
Figure 6.1: MIddle Class BASTARDS!
One thing that is not acknowledged out loud is that bank bailouts and NAMA are capitalist stopgaps. These measures, while seemingly necessary within the current climate, save certain failing elements of systems preferred by the dominant hierarchy, capitalist systems that allow the accumulation of massive wealth for that hierarchy. That capability for the accumulation of wealth (which generally requires the loss of wealth by another who may or may not be partaking in the fight that is greed culture) proportionately filters down through the class system with obvious (are they obvious? Do people still remember that Ireland has a working class?) disadvantages for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. To be blunt, very few commentators seem to admit that bailing out financial institutions and the creation of the National Assets Management Agency are socialist answers to unpleasant capitalist problems. Maybe that is because economic commentators are of the middle classes and generally favour capitalist systems that benefit their capability for the accumulation of wealth. Socialism is an opportunity cost for the dominant hierarchy. But, to be fair, imagine Barack “Jesus” Obama admitted such a thing publicly, that socialism, of all things, was an answer? Imagine he told the adoring American public that socialist solutions had to save their beloved capitalism?
“Darlin’, did President Obama just say the ‘S’ word?”
“No honey, em, he said, um… Social List. It’s a list of his friends.”
“I knew it. He ain’t no Commie! *Insert generic Deep South phrase here*”
The very capitalist systems that are so precious to so many are only actually beneficial to those in the ascendancy on the financial food chain and, being one and the same, those who influence the lower rungs of that chain. However, that system can only succeed, and by success I mean facilitating wider benefits for the world at large, if everyone participating is 100% morally sound. And nobody is, or not many are anyway. Rather, we’re greedy, or, in capitalist speak, financially ambitious.
The Banker, the guy who ripped off his customers, is a greedy man. Obviously, there’s no doubt about it. And it’s okay to call him greedy flat-out because he’s The Banker. He sneaks into your house at night to steal your hard-earned money and on the way out he rolls up all your socks inside out, and we all know that banker sounds like…
Figure 6.2: The Bankers have fallen flat on their arses! Ha!
But there are other greedy men who aren’t getting it in the neck, which is understandable, because some of them are the unwitting victims here. The average person, who ambitiously/greedily took out a mortgage on a house that he could only afford if everything went perfectly or better for him over the next twenty to twenty-five years, has now lost his house. Some may highlight stupidity as a potential quality of this synecdochical man but, it must be said, greed and stupidity are not mutually exclusive. So maybe he is greedy and stupid? And, shockingly, capitalist systems failed this man. But we’re all greedy, so is capitalism wrong?
And it is a bit close to the bone, isn’t it? Because there are plenty of us in this Joe the Plumber position, or with friends and family struggling with the same problems. It can’t even be said by those with power. If a politician hurts your feelings you won’t vote for them. Even If Mr. Obama says at some point that it was, perhaps, a little bit your fault, pointing down the lens of a camera towards an unsuspecting international audience, previous chants of “YES WE CAN,” would quickly mutate into the far less catchy and unfortunately long-winded, “We hate Obama, whatever happened to that other guy? He wasn’t that bad, was he? I had a job back then.”
So laissez-faire economic policies and free-to-exploit-others capitalism can’t work, not necessarily because it is systematically flawed, but because we are systematically flawed. Or, rather, capitalism is essentially flawed because those who partake in it are undoubtedly flawed. We all want to be in a better position than we are now. We all want a nicer car, a bigger house, luxury toilet roll or a Thai mail-order bride.
Figure 6.3: If it weren't for those bloody BANKERS, You could have had a Thai wife.
But of course, it is the fault of the bankers, isn’t it? And the government? Yes, it is their fault. If there was any justice, the bankers that have actively swindled honest people out of their money would all be put in prison to rot. They should, at the very least, apologise, shouldn’t they? And, one would think, the government should be taking some responsibility for poor economic controls and an inability to deal with crises. Why aren’t they saying sorry either? But, if we honestly expect this capitalist system to succeed, then we have to look at ourselves too as, after all, the collective controls the flow of cash in every transaction. But can capitalism succeed? No, but it could be a little more fair.
As long as the responsibility for our recent economic hardship is left in the lap of those bankers and developers, and while it remains the charge of that government to simply ‘fix’ economic problems, the average bloke won’t really have learned anything at all. It may be mostly their fault, but until we trade in our amateur economic analysis for some introspective honesty, the blame will always lie somewhere else and very little is likely to change.
