Fry Bread

[ike]

I thought I would find a topic on Fry Bread in a search but no luck. Can the Forum help me with recipies and discription on how to prepare and use Fry Bread. Thanks for your help.

 

[Claude Mathis]

http://home.comcast.net/~osoono/ethnicdoughs/frybread/frybread.htm
http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/NavajoFryBread.htm
http://www.manataka.org/page180.html

 

[Blizzard of '93]

try it made with sourdough if you have the starter - good stuff with stew meat.

 

[shmrck1]

That Native Americans made and used fried bread,
I doubt is any great revelation. Italians did
it (Zeppole)sp...I also know the Irish did so :hmm: Can't begin to tell you how much my
mother made when I was about 50 years younger.
Fried bread is certainly not unique to Native
Americans. More a sign of poorness rather than
nationinalty.IMHO
snake-eyes

 

[Claude Mathis]

That Native Americans made and used fried bread,
I doubt is any great revelation. Italians did
it (Zeppole)sp...I also know the Irish did so :hmm: Can't begin to tell you how much my
mother made when I was about 50 years younger.
Fried bread is certainly not unique to Native
Americans. More a sign of poorness rather than
nationinalty.IMHO
snake-eyes

I have nothing to base this on, but I seriously doubt that Native Americans made "fried" anything until long after the Europeans arrived. I think "Indian Fry Bread" is a 20th century item.

 

[Blizzard of '93]

they did not have any wheat flour of course and for sure no metal pans but they did 'fry' in rendered bear fat useing clay pans. at least the Cherokee did.

 

[bwhoffman]

do a google search for "indian fry bread" pretty simple recipe.....water, flour, salt sugar maybe a pinch of baking powder.

here is one for use in a dutch oven..........

Indian fry bread


4 cups flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
2 tsp Crisco
1 1/2 cups water

Possible ingredients for garnish:
powdered sugar
chocolate sauce
blackberries
strawberries

Place 25 coals under a Dutch oven. Combine dry ingredients.
Add water to dry ingredients. Mix in water until dough is slightly sticky.
Kneed dough until it appears smooth. Divide dough into balls (about the size of
your palm). Roll out a ball of dough. Rotate to make sure the edges are even
Cut dough into 4 equal pieces. Fill 12 inch Dutch oven with 4 cups oil.
When oil starts to bubble place the four pieces into the oil. The dough will
have bubbles appear on it, when this happens flip the dough over and let it cook for
about 2 min. Remove from the oil and let cool. Garnish as you like.

 

they did not have any wheat flour of course and for sure no metal pans but they did 'fry' in rendered bear fat useing clay pans. at least the Cherokee did.

Pre-Columbian reference?

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Visit Cherokee, N.C. and go to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and see for yourself as I did. fish rolled in fine corn meal and fried in bear lard was considered 'haute` cuisine' by them. and other meat done as that. also boiled then dried nuts (acorns mostly) were ground into flour made into 'biscuits' of a sort then fried.

 

Visit Cherokee, N.C. and go to the Museum of the Cherokee Indian and see for yourself as I did.

Well, driving across the country to verify your information doesn't appeal to me.

I was hoping for a written reference with a date, not an anecdotal story about a display someone saw.

Thanks, I'll keep looking. :hatsoff:

 

[Blizzard of '93]

that's too bad, the Reservation (Eastern Cherokee Band) is about 60 miles from me. been there many times, the museum of Cherokee Liveing is worth a visit.

 

[Bountyhunter]

Actually the term FRY BREAD came about when 'ol Kit Carson rounded up the Navajos and marched their sorry butts over to Fort Sumpter (Bosque Redondo) and imprisoned them along about 1860. They came near starving to death over there and fry bread came about from necessity of the commodities that were given them, the flour and lard and such. Problem was, it was mostly spoiled, rancid, or buggy by the time that the agents gave it to the indians. Out of necessity, they came up with fry bread in order to have something to eat.

 

[omarick1948]

Here is an old (at least 1990) Sioux recipe for Indian Fry Bread! This here recipe is a popular secret among the POW WOW gatherings, here in the Great Plains!

(1)....Go to the trading post or super market and buy Rhodes or other brand of Frozen Bread Dough.

(2)....Thaw out a loaf or two...let rise and then with for hands and fingers...pull off a chunk and stretch and stretch it out thin in a pancake. Gently lay into hot oil and turn over when brown.
Take out of oil..let cool a little. Then eat plain of sprinkle with sugar, cinnamin etc. Put ground spiced meat and lettuce, onion, tomatoe and cheese and you have the World Famous Indian Taco!!....Or just go to about any Native American POW WOW and pay $5.00 for this tastey part of history!

P.S..... Stretching the dough by hand, is a great way to socialize with your campfire friends and also clean your finger nails too! :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

 

[Bob Riegl]

:v My last meeting with Navajo Fry Bread was in the 50's. I was stationed in El Paso (Fort Bliss) and took leave to go to New Mexico, to visit Philmont Scout Reservation, where I had been on summer staff for four years prior. There was an 65 year old Navajo working at the camp and he always taught scouts how to make fry bread. The greatest thing was his Blue Corn Flour, when he made the batter our faces used to drop at the color---but the taste with sprinkles of powdered sugar. Now I got me hungry for it so I am going to have to make it for myself. The funniest thing was his whole operation came out of a large #6 can that held cling peaches (according to the lable) and a beat up, crusty old fry pan on a wood fire. What memories---BTW Zeppoli is the correct spelling---another memory of my wife and mother-in-law. :thumbsup:

 

[crockett]

Claude: I too thought this fry bread business was all modern day Rendezvous "ness". Well..never say never. Earlier today I got around to reading Robert Campbell's narrative and there it was, "Trappers would make a feast of batter fried in melted buffalo tallow, a sort of fritter".
Now I don't know if this qualifies as fried bread, I suppose it would depend on the thickness of the batter. As far as a rising agent- I have no idea. Beer or porter was often taken, maybe that. This "fritter" was obviously a special event item, not an every day fare.

 

[Claude Mathis]

Claude: I too thought this fry bread business was all modern day Rendezvous "ness". Well..never say never. Earlier today I got around to reading Robert Campbell's narrative and there it was, "Trappers would make a feast of batter fried in melted buffalo tallow, a sort of fritter".

Well, "Trappers would make a feast of batter fried in melted buffalo tallow, a sort of fritter" is certainly not pre-Colombian. I did speculate that it was, "after the Europeans arrived".

 

[crockett]

I posted that because I had never seen anything definate on it before. Now I'm mostly interested in the mountain man era. Like I said, not too much should be read into this, the batter may have been small spoonfuls, more hush puppy than fried bread.
I wonder if some of the more exotic food of the mountain men had a French influence since a very large portion of the trappers were French or Metis with French fathers. I think it was Ferris that noted on Sundays they would sometimes have a dumpling made of flour and minced meat deep fried in fat. I also recently read of a sausage made with chopped up liver and marrow fat, before that I had only read of the intestines cleaning and roasted or Stewart- who said the tenderloin was minced up, mixed with fat, and stuffed into sausages.

 

If this discussion is about "Indian fry bread", and not what the whites ate, this may help.

Ironically, it was the U.S. government that introduced fry bread to the country's Native population. As soldiers forced Indians from their ancestral homes in the 19th century to make way for white settlers, opportunities to hunt for traditional foods were lost.

Instead, Indians had to make do with government-issued food rations, which included flour and lard. Even today, the federal government's Food and Nutrition Service continues to distribute "commodity foods" to low-income Indian families, including several fry bread ingredients.

Anti-fry bread campaigners are emphasizing the "foreign" origins of fry bread in the hopes of weaning diners off the dish. "Fry bread was a gift of Western civilization from the days when Native people were removed from buffalo, elk, deer, salmon, turkey, corn, beans, squash, acorns, fruit, wild rice and other real food," writes activist Suzan Shown Harjo in Indian Country Today, a leading Native American newspaper. "Fry bread is emblematic of the long trails from home and freedom to confinement and rations. It's the connecting dot between healthy children and obesity, hypertension, diabetes, dialysis, blindness, amputations and slow death."

 

[Blizzard of '93]

the Cherokee would boil acorns and chestnuts, dry them and pound/grind into flour of a sort. mixed with cornmeal from corn from their farms and mixed with other ingredients into a 'dough' it was cooked (fried) in bear fat (or other animal fat bear was the most prized evidently). there is a restaraunt in Cherokee that serves up dishes their ancestors ate but I've never eaten there it's fairly pricey.
I figure them folks ate pretty good they knew how to cure (salt and smoke) bear and deer hams and other game and had farms with squash, beans berrys and peaches and of course the American Chestnut covered the forests.