Comfort food or colonial byproduct?

Join us for a live podcast recording of the Canadian premiere of RUIN THEIR CROPPS ON THE GROUND on Thursday, November 14th from 7-9pm at Another Storybook Shop in Toronto. Free to attend. RSVP here. In conversation with host Vinita Srivastava The podcast

Frybread, sometimes called “dyebread” or “weapon of health destruction,” has quite a few origin stories, and so they all involve coercion and persistence.

In a presentationIndian agents of the United States federal government are charged with rations of carelessly stored flour, allowing weevil larvae to attack it. No other food was available, so local cooks fried the flour in hot lard to kill the larvae. In this stroke of genius, they saved the flour and created the primary fry bread.

Another story Frybread locates the birthplace on the Pecos River at Fort Sumner, where American soldiers imprisoned Navajos and Apaches after a military campaign. Military officers gave the prisoners supplies of flour, salt and iron utensils. Charged with making something edible, Navajo women kneaded the dough into dough balls, flattened them, then deep-fried them in animal fat. The prisoners enjoyed the dish a lot that they continued to cook and eat it after they left Fort Sumner and returned home.

Modern frybread remains to be made with easy ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, and sometimes sugar, shortening, fried in lard or oil.

It's a flexible meal that may be sweet or savory, perfect as a taco base, filling snack or snack. When served sweet, it is usually sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and comes with jam. Flavored versions can have pizza toppings.

T-shirts celebrating frybread abound: “Feel the frybread,” “Got the frybread?” “Fry bread power,” “Fry bread is my soulmate,” “I was told there would be fry bread,” “It's all about the fry bread.” i”Commode bodes and fry bread powerScholar Dana Ventris explains that these popular t-shirts help locals find one another in an environment where wearing traditional regalia isn’t any longer common.

A'aninin anthropologist George P. Horse Capture called frybread “a godsend for the hardships indigenous people have endured, such as racism and disease.”

In 2005, South Dakota declares frybread to be its official state bread.

A 2012 satirical film, the Arizona Fry Bread Championship satirizes the cutthroat competition between Native Nations.

Ojibwe rock artist “Fry Bread” by Keith Secola A musical tribute to beloved food. In one version of the song, he associates frybread with Indian resistance. At the identical time, Secola claims that “fry bread has killed more Indians than the federal government.”

In the hit television show, the one series to feature all local writers, directors and most important forged members, the Indian Health Center invited rapper Punkin Lusty, played by the real-life Mvskoke rapper. Stan Judyto perform his hit song “Greasy Fry Bread”. This is Diabetes Awareness Month. Catchy Raps:

“Baby lookin' deadly (yeah!)/ Why she's all risin' (yeah!)/ Hotter than a pan of frybread grease!/ An area hittin' powwow beats!/ Aunt caught within the kitchen/ Not like that Didn't /He got Gramma's frying pan/Like she's about to hit him!

The song locates frybread firmly inside indigenous culture.

The song's introduction to the medical institution's fight against diabetes marks one other side of the frybread legacy, including a T-shirt that proclaims “Frybread: Obesity since 1860.” .

Cheyenne and Hoodoogie Muskogee Indigenous rights activist Suzanne Shawn Harjo, who vowed to provide up fry bread as a New Year's resolution, Explains“Frybread is a symbol of long trails from home and freedom from confinement and rations. It is the connecting point between healthy children and obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, dialysis, blindness, erosion and slow death.”

I, writer and English professor David Trevor, introduce health educator Chelsea Luger, who’s Ojibwe and Lakota. Chelsea speaks to local communities in regards to the dangers of frybread as a part of an effort to push their weight-reduction plan in recent directions, even with limited food options. “Sometimes people get defensive, but we manage to make the conversation positive. We say we grew up with it and adore it and we are saying fried bread isn't power. We They say that fry bread is killing our people. It is so serious that it causes diabetes and heart disease. We have to have a look at these colonial foods as an enemy.

Frybread evokes sentimental emotions amongst its fans and critics. Some rejoice it as a culinary art, some eat it as a comfort food, some curse it as a colonial byproduct, and a few shun it as an indication of ignorance or self-destruction. But everyone agrees that it's a far cry from the pre-colonial cuisine that nourished indigenous peoples for hundreds of years.

In short, fry bread is hyped up. The paradoxes of trying to stick to familiar foods while staying healthy. Tirol Dave Johnson, co-director of Tohono Odham Community Action, doesn't consider fry bread to be a conventional food. “Are there traditional songs about fry bread? You know, is there a ceremony that you just do if you're frying bread? So you're your culture in your tribes and see, 'I fry from my creator. What type of prayers do I pray for Brad?'

But a Native woman who has been moved off her reservation feels the other. She describes how frybread connects her to her family: “Frying bread is significant to me….the smell of it makes us joyful….it makes me consider my mother and the way she bakes it every morning. [My boyfriend] Powwows was danced within the circuit, so it also reminds us of being young and kicking up our heels.

Outsiders often blame indigenous people's love of fried bread and other low-nutrition foods for his or her health problems, ignoring the colonial history of genocide and assimilation efforts that created structural barriers to good health. why

A 2000 National Institutes of Health study of obesity amongst local elementary school students concluded that caregivers and communities are in charge. By examining only the dietary content of their foods, the researchers avoided asking whether these were the one foods available and why. Understanding indigenous food requires a detailed reading of the past that acknowledges displacement, broken treaties, and the destruction of traditional food sources. It calls for a deeper evaluation of the impact of poverty, racism, and government actions that led to inadequate medical services and lack of access to nutritious food on and off the reservation.

The fact is that fried bread does less harm than food provided under the guise of food aid. The boxes of commodity food that the USDA distributes to reservations are no less than as bad, without providing the cultural amenities that fry bread redeems. Ultimately, the demonization of frybread only serves to distract from government policies which have dictated indigenous food and health since colonization.