Frybread, the food many people know and love, has only been around for a hundred years or so.
“Frybread here at the [Western Montana] Fair is one of the most popular foods that people come when they come to the fair they get and, they often think that this is a traditional food that Indigenous people have had for years — and it really isn't,” explained University of Illinois history professor Rosalyn LaPier.
“It is a food that developed out of a system of rationing when the United States government provided American foods to Indigenous people. During that time, it was during the process of cultural genocide,” LaPier told MTN.
The rations were things like flour, salt, and oil, which are key ingredients in today's fry bread recipes, but were not a part of traditional diets for Indigenous tribes.
“Indigenous people took the foods that the United States government provided and were creative and they created different types of foods that they could use with the ingredients that were provided,” LaPier said.
Many Indigenous people adapted fry bread into their culture, and for Vanessa Sanchez - the owner of Fat Baby Frybread in Polson - it has helped her provide for her family.
“I love feeding people. My love language is definitely food,” Sanchez said.
She says despite the frybread origin story, she is moving this small piece of Indigenous history into a positive direction.
“Being a really successful business growing as much as we did and people loving my bread and our Huckleberry butter, that means everything to me,” Sanchez told MTN News
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“It is part of our culture. Even though it's only been around for about 100 years, we have adapted it into something that is well-known in all of our communities,” Sanchez continued.
As fry bread served its purpose, Indigenous people are finding hope in reconnecting traditional foods they were once not allowed to eat.
“A lot of Indigenous communities now are actually revitalizing their native foods and their native plants and going back to native foods,” LaPier noted - including foods such as bison, prairie turnips, bitterroot and service berries.
But frybread still has its place today.
“It's still made out of love and it's still made to feed other people,” Sanchez said.
