Homalosa

I got this in an email today, and dangit, it makes ya go
Activist says fry bread is new 'firewater'

Feb. 23, 2005

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=2987827


In an essay in a national Indian newspaper, Suzan Shown Harjo urges other
American Indians to join her in an abstinence pledge, vowing to never eat again
the puffy, fried dough disks made in pueblo, Navajo and Apache homes in New
Mexico and sold across the country at powwows, fairs and Indian rodeos.

Harjo says fry bread has replaced "firewater" in stereotypical portrayals of
American Indians as "simple-minded people who salute the little grease bread
and get misty-eyed about it."

She knocks the reservation staple as unhealthy and a prime contributor to the
growing obesity and diabetes epidemics among Indians.

Harjo is Cheyenne and Muskogee and works in Washington, D.C., as president
and executive director of The Morningstar Institute. She also writes a weekly
column for Indian Country Today, and she said she has received more response to
the fry bread essay than she has to any others.

At the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, fry bread was cooking up
hot and brown in the Pueblo Harvest Cafe kitchen and nobody was regarding it
as anything but tasty.

"I love fry bread," said Paulene Shebala, half Navajo and half Zuni and the
2003 Miss Indian New Mexico.

Shebala's platform as she traveled around the states during her reign was
diabetes education. It's not the fry bread that's the problem, she said; it's
cars, easy chairs and remote controls.

Like it or not, fry bread _ a basic white flour dough patted flat and fried
in boiling lard _ has become a pan-Indian cultural symbol.

Look at the T-shirts for sale at powwows and on the Internet, where
sloganeers, as does Harjo, usually write fry bread as one word: "Got Frybread?"
"Frybread University." And "Will Work For Frybread."

A shirt made popular in the American Indian film classic "Smoke Signals"
imitates Superman's crest and says "Frybread Power."

Before fry bread got cool, it was just a reservation soul food. Like green
chili is to expatriate New Mexicans, fry bread was something that Indians pined
for when away and gobbled up when they got home.

And before that?

It never existed in American Indian history.

Fry bread began its life as a cobbled-together food from U.S. government
rations, a way to keep from starving when government occupation kept tribal
members from pursing their native foods _ elk, buffalo, corn, beans and squash.

In New Mexico, Harjo points out, it was born on the banks of the Pecos River
in Fort Sumner at what was essentially a concentration camp for Navajos and
Apaches forced from their homelands by U.S. raids.

The imprisoned Indians were given rations they had never seen before: sacks
of white flour, salt and iron pots.

The women did their best with the alien flour and formed dough balls they
patted flat and cooked in boiling animal fat over fires.

What is now called Navajo fry bread had been born. When Navajos returned to
the reservation that had been carved out for them, fry bread came, too.

But Indian fry bread does not stand alone. Nearly every culture has some form
of sweet fried dough in its gustatory history: New Mexican sopaipillas, New
Orleans beignets and old-fashioned American doughnuts to name a few.

And fry bread is not the sole cause of the rise of Type II diabetes among
Indian people.

Navajo Nation Division of Health workers warn against other unhealthy foods
that are popular on reservations: sugary sodas, fried chips and fast food.

They also advise eating fry bread less often and eating smaller portions.

Tazbah McCullah, a member of the Navajo tribe and marketing director at the
Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, said she treats fry bread like a treat, not a
staple.

"You start to crave it, and you have it," she said. "In moderation."

Harjo welcomes an education campaign and acknowledges the battle will be an
uphill one "simply because so many young people think it really is Indian and
people have said it's a symbol of your people."

And, Harjo said, "It tastes good. That's hard to campaign against."


Copyright 2005 Associated Press.

__________________
Honor and respect your elders!



"Until the lion learns to speak the tales of hunting will always favor the hunter."
-K'Naan
O-BAM-UH!!!!



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quicksilverwade

Homalosa,
Did you know that our traditional frybread is not round but triangular in shape about the size of a cell phone.

Wepunkwteme

Hell, I don't care what they say about it.
When my wife is makin friedbread, I'm right
next to her with a plate all ready to go.

Homalosa

I didn't know that Wade. That's the same as Bannock innit?

And firewater or not, I love frybread. I allow myself one piece a month. I won't make it at home or else I'll grow huge again. My daughter were at a powwow last weekend that had two booths. One booth was sponsored by the trader's village and the other by Dallas UMC. Well, uh, we went to the wrong booth and that dang near ruined the powwow for me! I mean, dang don't mess with my bread! So when this spectator asked my opinion I said, "be sure to go to the little Indin Church booth, avoid the big fancy one over there."

__________________
Honor and respect your elders!



"Until the lion learns to speak the tales of hunting will always favor the hunter."
-K'Naan
O-BAM-UH!!!!



www.myspace.com/thobackmuzik

www.myspace.com/asanicharles