Fry Bread (2024)

FAQs

Why do Native Americans make fry bread? ›

In place of traditional Diné foods such as corn, beans, and squash, the government provided only sparse commodities like flour, salt, sugar, and lard. Through ingenuity and experimentation, fry bread was born as a means of survival.

Health Problems

Fry bread can be eaten alone or as part of a meal, or can be dessert topped with butter, cinnamon and sugar or perhaps honey. Fry bread is tempting to most people because of the grease/lard/shortening ingredient and therein lies the problem. Not only is fry bread high in fat, it is also caloric.

A typical frybread recipe consists of flour, water, salt, a small amount of oil or lard, and sometimes baking powder or more rarely yeast. The ingredients are mixed and worked into a simple dough, and covered with a cloth for 30 minutes to an hour, until the dough rises.

Fry bread—also known as Indian fry bread or Navajo tacos—is made from flour, salt, baking powder and warm water. Plus shortening, in which to fry the dough. These staples were all American Indian tribes had access to when fry bread was first created (more on that later).

Let's talk about frybread. It can be found at almost every gathering, celebration, and Indian “doing”, but certainly at every powwow.

The common story of fry bread is that before it became a staple of powwows and family dinners, it was a survival food, usually traced to the Navajo people (who call themselves the Diné).

Poking a little hole in the middle prevents it from puffing up too much.

Tips for Making Delicious Native American Fry Bread

Don't over-knead—Be careful not to knead the dough too much because the bread will be hard and tough. More flour—The dough is sticky but easy to work with; keep your hands and work surface well-floured. Dough thickness—Adjust the thickness of the dough for your use.

What's the difference between fry bread and sopapillas? Mostly just the name. Fry bread doesn't have sugar in the dough and the name is used more in Arizona. In New Mexico they are called sopapillas and in the Pacific Northwest some people call them elephant ears.

Fry bread was invented by the Navajo tribe of the southwestern United States in 1864 using the flour, sugar, lard, and salt given to them by the U.S. government. The end-result is a cake that is flatter and smoother compared to funnel cakes' fluffy, lumpy texture.

Is fry bread the same as a scone? ›

This treat has many names, but in North America it's mostly known as fry bread, or frybread. Unless you're from Utah like me, and then you likely call this a scone. But regardless of the name you're familiar with, they're all pretty much the same— a simple dough rolled or stretched flat and deep-fried till golden.

Bannock is a fry bread

Bannock is a type of fry bread, which originates from Scotland but was eventually adopted by the Indigenous peoples of Canada, particularly the Métis of western Canada. Bannock stems from the Gaelic word bannach, which means “morsel,” a short and sweet but accurate description.

Fry bread is a bit controversial in the Native American society. Some love it and others hate it due to its history. When Native Americans were forced away from their ancestral lands, they took everything they owned and could carry and walked to new lands which were nothing like their original homelands.

There is evidence that the frying of various forms of dough occurred between 8000 and 5500 BC, after the invention of pottery allowed for oil to be heated in pots. Imagine that discovery: One day you've got some useless weeds that plague your landscape and the next day doughnuts enter your life.

Squaw bread is a rye and molasses bread that was developed by the German immigrants and the Native Americans near whom they lived in the 1800s. When some of the Germans chose to move west, they took with them seeds for rye and recipes from their homeland.

Bannock, skaan (or scone), Indian bread, alatiq, or frybread is found throughout North-American Native cuisine, including that of the Inuit of Canada and Alaska, other Alaska Natives, the First Nations of the rest of Canada, the Native Americans in the United States, and the Métis.