Frybread is a flat dough bread, fried or deep-fried in oil, shortening, or lard. Made with simple ingredients, generally wheat flour, sugar, salt, and fat, frybread can be eaten alone or with various toppings such as honey, jam, powdered sugar, venison, or beef. Frybread can also be folded and filled with meats beans, as the so-called Navajo taco (also called "Indian taco").
Frybread has a complex cultural history that is inextricably intertwined with colonialism and displacement of Native Americans, especially the Navajo people. The ingredients for frybread were provided to Native Americans to prevent them from starving when they were moved from areas where they could grow and forage their traditional foods to areas that would not support their traditional foods. Critics see the dish as both a symbol of colonization and a symbol of resilience.
