Native American's Food

With over five hundred tribes distributed throughout North America, one can imagine the Native American's food choices were vast. As traditional foods were decided centuries ago, many of them are harder for tribes and Natives to maintain. The loss of land and the forced removal of Native Americans made it hard if not impossible for some tribes to keep traditional foods. Then there is the fight to keep naturally grown foods from being destroyed by development or ecological contamination.

However, in the twentieth century as American Indians had more opportunity to interact through boarding school and intermarriage some Native American's food have become universal. That is to say universal to Indian Country. Many ingredients can be found in grocery stores and some tribes like the Citizen Potawatomi have even opened their own grocery stores. These stores serve the Native population with specialty foods but also the general population. Some Navajo grocery stores will be the only place one can buy 40 lb bags of flour and five gallons of lard in one location.

Frybread

The Native American's food of choice usually revolves around frybread. Frybread is a a bread dough that is then fried. There may be some similarities to many ethnic breads but it may be best described as a dense and larger sopapilla. It is then most often served with some soup or stew. In the Southwest it is often served with mutton stew (Navajo) or pozole. In Oklahoma it could be served with corn soup. With the woodland tribes it would be served with wild rice. The northern plain Sioux enjoy it as wojapi, a dipping bread for a fruit sauce.

A favorite use of frybread in Native American's food is the Indian taco. That is frybread covered with spiced meat, beans, and a choice of toppings like lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, onions, salsa, sour cream, etc. Almost any gather of Natives in the lower 48 states will usually have an Indian taco vendor.