Frybread goes global

 

 

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 NSubject:n [NativeNews] ICT: Frybread goes global

 

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From: <ForCERTAIN62@aol.com>
To: <Natnews@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2006 10:50 AM
Subject: [NativeNews] ICT: Frybread goes global


> Frybread goes global
>
> Posted: March 21, 2006
> by: Stephanie Woodard
>
> http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096412680
>
>
>
> INTERIOR, S.D. - It's a cold, overcast winter day in South Dakota's rugged
> Badlands, with just enough of a breeze to remind you that between here and
> the
> North Pole there's little more than a few barbed-wire fences. But inside
> the
> offices of frybread mix manufacturer WoodenKnife Co., owner Ansel
> WoodenKnife is
> basking in the glow of warm memories.
>
> The story started in 1979, when WoodenKnife, Lakota, and his wife, Teresa,
> opened a cafe in the little town of Interior, just 60 miles from where
> he'd
> grown up on the Rosebud Reservation. Nowadays, they count among their
> customers
> some of the nation's biggest corporations. Safeway, Stop & Shop
> Supermarkets,
> Nobel/Sysco Food Services and Wal-Mart purchase WoodenKnife Co.'s frybread
> mix
> and/or frozen dough and sell it in almost every state in the nation. In
> recent
> years, restaurants, museum stores and gift shops have joined the client
> list.
>
> At the beginning, however, the duo operated a modest restaurant that
> included
> among its offerings Indian tacos, a mix of ground meat, shredded lettuce,
> tomatoes and cheese on a frybread base. Their tacos' popularity was due in
> large
> part to an unusual ingredient in the frybread dough: timpsila, or prairie
> turnip. Thanks to this potato-like root, a longtime Lakota favorite, the
> WoodenKnifes' frybread was naturally sweeter and lighter, yet more
> substantial, than
> other types.
>
> ''Timpsila acts as a leavening and is what made our frybread so fluffy,''
> said WoodenKnife. ''The recipe was my mother's. She put timpsila in
> everything.''
>
> Diners flocked to the cafe. Visitors to the nearby Badlands National Park
> dropped by. Singer Tracy Chapman, who has a house in the area, was a
> regular. In
> 1992, movie stars Val Kilmer and Sam Shepherd ate at WoodenKnife Cafe
> nearly
> every day while shooting ''Thunderheart.'' ''Good Morning America'' and
> ''The
> Today Show'' broadcast episodes from there. In 2000, star chef Emeril
> Lagasse
> shot a Food Network episode at the cafe and put it on the national
> culinary
> map. It appeared in travel guides.
>
> As we spoke, WoodenKnife began looking through a big box of guestbooks he
> and
> his wife used to leave out for patrons to sign. ''Here's the president of
> Finland,'' he said, and read: '''The best meal I've had in the United
> States so
> far.'''
>
> Customers repeatedly asked to buy some of the ever-popular frybread dough
> to
> take home, so the couple decided to create a dry mix and market it. ''We
> started in local grocery stores and grew from there,'' WoodenKnife
> recalled.
>
> After the Food Network broadcast another episode about WoodenKnife Cafe in
> 2002 - this time praising the frybread mix - the phones started ringing
> almost
> immediately. The WoodenKnifes rounded up their daughters, friends and
> neighbors
> to take orders around the clock. ''That was the end of the restaurant. We
> had
> to close it down,'' recalled WoodenKnife. ''Until then, I had no idea of
> the
> power of the media. The episode was broadcast four times. After each
> showing,
> the phones rang 24 hours a day for a long time.''
>
> He turned his attention to the frybread products, which are made in an
> automated facility behind the shuttered cafe, now converted to office
> space. He
> still gets calls from former patrons, who ask if he'd consider re-opening
> the
> restaurant. ''I don't see how I can,'' he said. ''Besides, we like having
> our
> weekends free.''
>
> The company uses thousands of pounds of wheat flour annually; harvesting
> proportional amounts of timpsila from the prairie, as WoodenKnife's
> ancestors did,
> would threaten wild populations of this plant, so he contracts with a farm
> to
> grow virtually all he needs. ''I do buy a few arm's lengths - that's the
> traditional way of measuring braids of timpsila - from families who gather
> them,''
> he said. ''They rely on the income, and the small amounts they harvest
> wouldn't do any harm.''
>
> Ask him about the beige-and-blue cardboard container he designed to hold
> one
> and one-half pounds of dry mix, and he reveals a stubborn streak. The
> cardboard is made from recycled paper, the ink has a soy base, the gloss
> is
> cornstarch, and the inner wrapping breaks down in sunlight. He won't print
> any of that
> information on the box, though, despite people advising him to do so as a
> marketing ploy. He's happy to seek out environmentally sound practices, he
> said,
> but he's not willing to brag about them - or to risk acting out a
> ''stewards of
> the Earth'' stereotype.
>
> Plans for the company's expansion include developing mixes for other types
> of
> baked goods and adding military business; the firm has just become a
> Department of Defense contractor. ''The frybread will be a taste of home
> for our
> soldiers overseas,'' said WoodenKnife, whose family has a long warrior
> history,
> including several generations in the U.S. Marine Corps.
>
> WoodenKnife's products may be circling the globe, but his primary concerns
> remain local and imbued with Lakota ethics. He volunteers in the community
> in
> many ways, including as a firefighter, in the school's reading program and
> as a
> Little League coach. He supplies the team's uniforms and equipment.
>
> ''It's the way we were raised,'' he said. ''Caring for your community is a
> central part of life - a value that comes down to us from long ago.'' For
> more
> about WoodenKnife Co., call (800) 303-2773 or visit

http://www.woodenknife.com.