What foods can be considered typical Navajo Cuisine? Are their any outstanding specialties?
Fry bread and mutton stew would have to be the most typical fare. Fry bread dates back to the days that the Navajo were interred at Fort Sumner. When flour was first provided, the Dineh did not know how to prepare it. Stories from that era note stomach sickness often followed consumption of this strange food. No longer. A ball of dough made of flour, baking power, salt , water and lard is flattened into a disc, by using the thumb and fingers of both hands to flatten it into an eight inch diameter disc. This is then fried in hot oil. How it is consumed after that varies locally. When I first arrived in Navajoland the closest thing I had been used to were sopapillas, which we always ate with honey. It took some getting used to see Navajo children dipping their fry bread into a pan filled with salt and thoroughly relishing the white encrusted result. Generally fry bread is served with mutton stew, but is at home in other dishes as well. Navajo tacos are piles of beans, lettuce and chili o
