fried bread n
1 now usu fry bread: Wheat dough, usu leavened with yeast or baking powder and fried, usu in deep fat. Note: Esp in form fry bread, now assoc with Amer Ind cultures. Cf Baptist cake n, spider bread n, squaw bread n
1836 in 1930 IL State Hist. Soc. Jrl. 23.228, The fourth day of July I gave a feast to all the squaws, we boiled corn and had some fried bread, a favorite dish with them. 1852 U.S. Army Corps Topog. Engineers Exped. Gt. Salt Lake 187, Our stock of flour being diminished to little more than one sack, . . and the fresh beef having entirely disappeared, we were reduced to fat salt pork and fried bread. 1854 Putnam’s Mag. 4.252 NEng, We “camped out,” living on “frizzled pork” . . and bread, eaten off extemporaneous birch bark plates . . I indoctrinated our worthy guide in the art and mystery of preparing fried bread, . . which is a delicacy “as is ekalled by few and excelled by none.” 1863 Heard Hist. Sioux War 221 MN, The men filled the house; some of them were Walking Spirit’s soldiers; the rest were Northerners. The women carried food to the door, but did not come in. The dinner consisted of fried bread and coffee. 1893 Century Illustr. Mag. 45.455 neNE, [At an Omaha feast:] Women rolled out the dough on boards resting partly on the lap, partly on the ground; . . the piles of round cakes of fried bread grew taller and taller. 1895 DN 1.387 wCT, Dough from the regular batch of bread, fried instead of baked; eaten hot, with molasses. . . [This] was called simply fried bread. 1921 Trenton Eve. Times (NJ) 27 Feb part 2 5/3, Southern Fried Bread. On bread-making day, when the bread is ready to shape into loaves for the last rising, take off enough dough to make a small loaf. Pinch off pieces the size of biscuits for raising, roll the pieces like finger rolls, tucking a little piece of butter into each. Let them rise to twice their size, then fry in deep, hot fat like doughnuts. 1932 Casselman Winnebago Finds Friend 40 WI, When flour can be had it is used, especially in “fry-bread,” made of flour, water, baking-powder and salt, cooked in deep fat. 1941 LANE Map 284 NEng, Pieces of raised bread dough fried in deep fat. . . fried bread [6 infs]. 1950 WELS 1 Inf, cwWI, Indian fry bread (Winnebago) is fried bread—pieces of dough pulled off and fried or sautéed. Fry bread is made with baking powder. 1954 Ogden Std.–Examiner (UT) 22 Apr sec A 13/1, An authentic Navajo menu will be served, featuring fry bread and Navajo stew. 1966–69 DARE (Qu. H18, . . Special kinds of bread) Inf CA94, Fried bread—same ingredients as tortilla: flour, baking powder, salt, water; fried in deep oil; CO40, Fried bread—from light bread dough; cut off a hunk and deep-fat fry (or boil) it; MT5, Fried bread; NH6, Fried bread—add shortening to extra bread dough, fry for breakfast. Some added jelly in the center of the dough; (Qu. H19) Inf CA132, Fried bread—use bread dough or baking powder biscuit dough. Let it raise and then fry; [(Qu. H20b, . . Names . . for pancakes) Inf SC43, Fried bread; SC70, Fry bread]. 1977 Jones OR Folkl. 109, Fry bread has become a pan-Indian “soul food.” . . [T]here are as many variations in making fry bread as there are in making lefse: whether or not yeast or other leavening is used and how the bread is shaped are matters that vary from tribe to tribe. 1986 News Herald (Panama City FL) 7 May sec B 9/2, Miccosukee Fry Bread—2 pounds . . self-rising flour / 1 cup water / Oil. 1989 Sierra Mar-Apr 69 UT, The Navajo taco. . . An acre of fry bread, a bushel of beans, a furlong of cheese, a firkin of lettuce. . . God knows what else. 1990 NY Times (NY) 1 Aug sec C 3/3 cnWI, Fry bread, a staple of the Indian diet in many parts of the country, was adopted as a way to use flour included in the Government annuities, Mr. Rose said. It is a simple yeast or baking-powder dough that is fried in hot oil. 1996 Daily Sentinel (Sitka AK) 10 Dec 2/2, If you got a chance to come to the Christmas Bazaar this year, you also had the chance to eat some tasty fry bread sold as a STRC/SADD fund-raiser. 2000 Shores Tangier Is. 201 Chesapeake Bay, For breakfast they fried a doughy mixture they called fried bread. 2008 Erdrich Plague 213 ND [Amer Ind], There was just so much happening directly after the funeral, what with the windy burial and then the six-kinds-of-frybread supper in the Knights of Columbus hall.
2 also fry bread: = fried corn-bread n. chiefly Sth
1846 Mth. Jrl. Ag. 2.10, When ground into meal, it [=maize] is used in every variety of mode, and after every fashion: for instance—mush, crush, dodger, fried-mush, fried-bread, ash-cake, fat-cake, hoe-cake, baker-cake, journey-cake [etc]. 1847 (1979) Rutledge Carolina Housewife 23, Fried Bread. Three gills of fine grits, boiled soft; mix with it two table-spoonfuls of rice flour, and salt to the taste. Make the mixture into cakes about half an inch thick, and fry them in lard in a spider, or skillet. 1966–67 DARE (Qu. H14, Bread that’s made with cornmeal) Inf LA12, Fried bread—hot-water bread made in a skillet. Hot-water bread is made with boiling salted water so the meal would stick; SC9, Fry bread is fried corn bread—round, flat; (Qu. H25, . . Fried cornmeal) Infs AL15, NC41, Fried bread; SC9, Fry bread. 1986 Pederson LAGS Concordance, 1 inf, ceTN, Fried bread—hoecake, cornbread; 1 inf, nwGA, Fried bread—cornbread; 1 inf, cnGA, Fried bread—type of hoecake that is thin and cooked in ashes; 1 inf, seGA, Fried bread—similar to pancake, made with meal; 3 infs, ne, ceFL, cnTN, Fried bread.
3 French toast.
1873 OH Farmer 22.138, Fried Bread. Beat two eggs, add one pint of water, one teaspoonful of salt. Cut the bread in slices, dip them into the prepared liquid . . , place them on a hot buttered griddle. 1880 S. Cultivator 38.234, Fried bread . . : Beat up two or three eggs with a pinch of salt and some pepper in a shallow plate. Dip the bread in this and fry in hot butter. . . Another way to fry bread . . is to dip stale bread for a minute in water, then fry, merely salting it. 1942 McAtee Dial. Grant Co. IN 27 (as of 1890s), Fried-bread . . slices of bread dipped in an egg-and-milk batter and fried; French toast. 1956 McAtee Some Dialect NC 17, Fried bread. . . French toast. 1968 DARE FW Addit Baltimore MD, Fried bread—[used] in reference to French toast.