Fry Bread

Fry Bread, The Navajo people’s fry bread is a circular, fried dough. Navajo fry bread was invented more than a century ago, when the United States forcibly relocated Native Americans from Arizona to New Mexico, over a 300-mile journey known as the Long Walk, onto ground that couldn’t support their traditional staples of vegetables and beans. The government provided canned goods, as well as white flour, processed sugar, and lard—the ingredients for fry bread—to keep these indigenous people from going hungry. Various tribes have their own versions of bread, including sweet bread, but fry bread is mainly savory.

How do you make fry bread puffy?

Baking powder gives the fried bread its puffy, pillow-like structure in this recipe. Other tribes may leaven their dough using yeast or starters. In many Native American households, bread dough is mixed in the morning, covered with a cloth, and let rise until needed.