INTRO: I’m here at the popular urban native coffee shop Pow Wow Grounds. It’s located in the Little Earth community in Minneapolis. It’s Friday, and it’s busy. It’s Fried Bread Fridays, after all.
[scene sound with man saying “man I love fridays”]
Natives and other locals alike are grabbing warm, fresh fried bread, with various toppings, like cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, from a worker behind the counter. It’s a happy environment here. It smells great. And It’s comforting.
But fried bread may be a negative factor in native health. And that’s what makes it a controversial subject, and one that’s tough to cover. Lucky me, right?
I mean, just 8 years ago, a popular fitness trainer, Jillian Michaels, caused bit of a stir when she visited an reservation down in Arizona. It was for a tv show, Losing It With Jillian. She was there to help a family suffering from obesity and diabetes.
Well, when she arrived, the community welcomed her warmly and threw an outside feast for her. But she began looking around, and soon the drama unfolded. And it involved, you guessed it, fried bread.
JILLIAN: “Looking around — everybody’s obese. 90 percent. Meantime, we’re out there dishing out fried bread. And watching the little ones, nahing on the fried bread. It’s killing them.”
Then, she did the unthinkable.
JILLIAN: “What would happen if the fried bread left the building … I’m dumping it.”
She threw away the fried bread — in front of all those people who welcomed her.
This food is important to the native community, but it could be a factor in diabetes — and it’s worth discussing.
So, how did fried bread come to be?
The history is painful and one of survival.
It all began over 150 years ago, when the Navajos were forced to walk 300 miles onto reservations in what is now New Mexico. And that new land didn’t support their hunter-gatherer way of life.
To help a bit with history, we spoke to Dr. Arne Vainio.
VAINIO: “Fried bread is not our traditional food.”
Dr. Vainio is a Mille Lacs Band member,who lives and works on the Fondu Lac Reservation, and treats people with diabetes. He’s also a historian.
VAINIO: “They started getting commodities, you know, white flour, refined sugar and all these fats. They made the best thing they could out of it. And that turned out to be our soul food. Our comfort food.”
Vainio says not only does fried bread bring comfort to those living in a stressful world, it brings back cherished memories. He talks about his brother, who died of diabetes, and how comfort food would bring them together.
VAINIO: “I would go and sit with my brother and have those foods and I’d be 6 years old again and safe, you know, and that’s what we go back to. And it’s not good.”
But like most comfort food, fried bread is not healthy. On average, there are about 700 calories and 25 grams of fat in a large plate of fried bread, according to the US Department of Agriculture. That’s not even including the additional toppings added to it.
So, it could very well contribute to diabetes. Maybe it’s not a major cause, but it’s a factor worth exploring.
[Gatherings cafe sound]
And some, like Chef Austin Bartold, say it’s time for a change. A change back to more traditional, more healthy, foods.
Bartold is the cafe manager and chef of Gathering Cafe, just a couple blocks from Pow Wow Grounds. He has strong feelings toward fried bread.
BARTOLD: “Growing up, all I saw was fried bread, fried bread, fried bread, fried bread.”
He says he knows how to make it, but refuses to because of the health issues he sees native people dealing with on a daily basis. And his family history.
He says fried bread has gotten even less healthy than it used to be.
BARTOLD: “Back then, it used to be cooked in cast iron. Nowadays, you get a big ol’ fryer and you just everything in there.
He says fried bread used to look more like a pita. But now, more cooks are using more oil, more baking powder and yeast.
BARTOLD: “A lot of people make it 9 inches wide.”
[sound of frying/cooking]
Bartold pushes against the trend towards modern unhealthy food by cooking up healthy and balanced meals made from traditional food sources of native peoples.
BARTOLD: 3:40 “You know, one of the biggest things that I try to do is bring back to the fruits and vegetables, you know, the gathering, the hunting, you know, all that stuff has been lost these days.”
OUTRO:
On one hand, fried bread is a symbol of sorts — a food forged out of necessity by struggling, yet resilient native people. On the other hand, it’s a comfort food that could also be harming native people.
I’m Cole Premo.