A Taco Bell Crunchwrap supreme has a big following. It’s a popular item and people find it tasty. While I ate my fair share of Taco Bell in college, I haven’t been there in years. Recently, someone mentioned making a Crunchwrap at home, and it gave me a reminder of days gone past, and inspired a thought in me.
I treat my home cooking like a chef would. I bake bread from scratch. I make my own pasta sauce. I’ve even made my own ketchup. All of that gives me a good respect for high quality food. As a result, I like checking out new places looking for that “something magical” sort of place. I rarely find it, but when I do, it makes me happy. “Something magical” is generally the term for not only good food, but food that isn’t practical to make at home.
Going to a great bakery, they have breads that may require a couple days of fermenting that you may not have the storage for at home, or breads that weave together 2 or 3 kinds of different doughs which you may not have the ingredients for and certainly making 3 kinds of dough for 1 loaf isn’t practical at all. Bakeries can do it because they want to make 30 such loafs daily, so they would be making 3 batches of dough anyway.
The Crunchwrap isn’t practical, it requires two different kinds of tortillas. A soft flour tortilla to be the wrap and a crunchy corn tortilla for the middle. It would require frying the inner corn tortilla if you didn’t buy it crispy already, then cooking the meat, then wrapping all the toppings and frying again. At home, it’s not likely. It’s easier to take all the toppings, dump it over tortilla chips and call it a day.
I wouldn’t call Taco Bell one of my “magical” places, it’s simply lacking the quality. However, the concept of making something that isn’t easy for the home cook is something to be inspired by if you’re looking to be in the food business. Other businesses can benefit from looking at things this way too.
None of this is Right 