More than Bread

Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story
​by Kevin Noble Maillard ill by Juana Martinez-Neal

Native American is not a past history of a vanished people and communities. We are still here.

This is a story of bread. But it's more than bread. Much more. This is a story of family. Of tradition. Of Native American pride.

Kevin Noble Maillard, member of Seminole Nation, Mekusukey Band shares a long-standing Indigenous special food: fry bread. Recipes for fry bread are as diverse as the numerous Native nations.

The sentence stem "Fry bread is..." introduces this delightful cultural staple. By turns it is food, shape, sound, color. flavor, time, history, place, nation, everything. Written in free verse, each concept fills the entire two-page spread. Replete with information and symbolism, each fry bread attribute is also a metaphor for Native Americans.

Familiar and foreign, old and new
We come together

Martinez-Neal has captured the warmth and closeness of family. Notice the infant, carried in the arms of various family members. This child is a part of the extended family, happily content with mother, grandmother, siblings. Each shares responsibility for this little one. Note: the child seems comfortable with any and all members of the community.

Illustrations make clear that there is no typical Native American. An array of hair colors and textures, a vast range of skin tones, and an assortment of various generations are all Indigenous people. One individual is pictured wearing eyeglasses and another walking with a cane.

Personal connections are embedded throughout. Names of family members and others involved with the book's creation are scattered across one page, some of the names handwritten.  A picture of Aunt Fannie, who taught Maillard to make this traditional staple appears twice. 

The Author's Note is an important and integral part of the story. Page by page, Maillard annotates and amplifies each concept with personal reflections and anecdotes.  The Reference section is a numerated notated listing of sources. Maillard includes his recipe from fry bread. End papers are a bonus, enumerating large tribes, small tribes, rancherias, villages, and groups that have not yet received official status. 

Making Fry Bread

If there is one thing that all Natives can agree upon about fry bread, it’s that everybody else's version is wrong,

Fry Bread brings back warm memories. When I was a college freshman, one of my roommates, Norma, was a Navajo from Arizona. She was very proud of her nationality and delighted in sharing Navajo culture with her roommates. She loved to sing, but not the hit songs playing on the radio. She sang traditional Navajo songs, with distinctive tonal patterns, and language. In my mind, I can still hear her singing. She was gentle and patient with us, helping us appreciate the Navajo Way.

For a treat, she would make us Navajo tacos. She never used a recipe. She just got out the flour and baking powder and went to work. Her recipe differed from Maillard’s. She didn’t use cornmeal or yeast.
​I tried to replicate Norma’s recipe. I’m sure that this isn’t exactly the same, but my family appreciated my efforts. They liked them sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. As I shared my memories of Norma, I realized that this experience with fry bread was a celebration of rich culture. It’s true. Fry Bread is more than bread.

Fry bread reflects the vast, deep diversity of Indian Country and these is no single way of making this special food.
​But it brings diverse Indigenous communities together through a shared culinary and cultural experience.
​That's the beauty of fry bread.

Copy provided by publisher.

Pub date: October 22, 2019  Publisher: Roaring Brook Press  ISBN: 978-1626727465