A Recipe for the Ages
Melinda Burriola, owner of the award-winning Mamma’s Tacos in Des Moines, is keeping her mother’s memory alive by serving her mother’s recipe with the help of her siblings and the future generations of her family.
Melinda Burriola, owner of Mamma’s Tacos food trailer in Des Moines, crowded into the trailer with eight members of her family to prepare food for the thousands of people attending the Des Moines Taco Festival on October 7, 2017. Side-by-side, they kneaded their homemade dough, assembled their fresh ingredients and tended to the hundreds of customers outside of their trailer waiting for a chance to try a Mamma’s Taco. They all relished the chance to get their hands, and more importantly their taste buds, on a Mamma’s Taco.
Hours later, at the close of the festival, Mamma’s Tacos won four out of the five categories that were being judged for the day: Best Seafood Taco, Best Beef Taco (her mother’s original recipe), Best Pork Taco and the Best “Anything Goes” Taco. They also won the grand prize for the competition, beating out around 20 other food trucks and restaurants that had competed. Burriola couldn’t believe the amount of success; for her, selling tacos is just a way to keep her mother, who passed away in 2008, alive.
“I never expected to do as good as we did,” Burriola said. “My main thing was just to win the beef taco … When we went and sat down for the awards ceremony, I told everyone, ‘Just remember, guys, even if we don’t win, we’ve been here, we’ve heard what everybody’s said … and so we’re winners either way. That’s why we’re here is just to share Mom with everyone.’”
Burriola, a 50-year-old Des Moines resident, has a day job at Common Properties as a Compliance Supervisor, but for the last year, she has also owned and operated Mamma’s Tacos, using her mother’s original recipe. The recipe has been in her family for around 75 years, passed down from her father’s sister to her mother and eventually to her and her 11 siblings. Some of her fondest memories from childhood stem from her mother’s tacos.
“My favorite food that she would make was her tacos,” Burriola said. “I have nine sisters and two brothers, so it was always a huge deal to make that much food. It was always a time for us to be together and laugh.”
Today, her mother’s recipe still serves the same purpose: bringing her family together. Burriola invited her sisters, nieces and nephews to assist with Mamma’s Tacos, and each of them brings something special to the team. Some of her sisters are better at making the dough, while others specialize in creating the taco mixtures, but all of them have the same goal of keeping their mother’s memory alive with Burriola.
“She asked me if I would cook for her and make the tacos and I said, ‘Well sure’,” said Monica Johnston, Burriola’s older sister. “That’s what I do, and I love doing it. I wanted to help her; I knew what she wanted, to remember my mom, so of course.”
Burriola likes to believe that her mother, as well as her brother — who passed away exactly a year before the taco festival — are watching out for her and helping good things to come to her and her family. A lot of tears were shed as they won award after award, and Burriola is happy that Mamma’s Tacos has become a way to bond with her family.
“Like many families, the best time to get together or reason to get together is to cook,” Burriola said. “You cook, you talk, you share memories, that type of thing. For me, I just have the one child. I had her a little bit late in life, so I didn’t get the privilege to build that family unit type thing and cook like what my mom got to do, which is another reason why I chose to do this. It helps me to be able to experience that.”
Burriola’s five-year-old daughter, Ava, has already experienced the family environment of Mamma’s Tacos from accompanying her mother to the festivals they attend. Burriola hopes that since Ava’s learning early, she’ll be an expert at making the tacos by the time she’s grown up. In the meantime, Burriola has helped her nieces and nephews to learn her mother’s recipe and assist with Mamma’s Tacos so that the next generation can carry on her mother’s legacy.
“I attribute a lot of what I know to my family — to my mom and aunts and grandma,” said Brian Johnston, Burriola’s nephew who helped create the winning seafood taco at the festival. “Especially grandma because our love of food comes from her.”
“And our high cholesterol,” Burriola added.
High cholesterol or not, Burriola plans on devoting as much time as possible to Mamma’s Tacos, hoping to someday increase the presence and popularity of Mamma’s Tacos around Des Moines. Until then, she will be busy spending as much time with her family as possible and keeping her mother’s memory alive, one homemade taco at a time.
