We made Indian Fry Bread and Wojapi!
The girls monthly project for November/December was to research a culture (not one of your own) and report on a traditional or celebrational food item. The kids needed to then make the food and bring it to a Cultural Exchange Pot Luck, which was also when the kids performed their Winter Concert.
Our children are descendants of European countries, so they decided to learn about food from a culture they have heard about but they aren't a part of: Lakota. They chose to make Indian Fry Bread and Wojapi (jelly).
We looked it all up online and found the recipes and historical context in which the fry bread and wojapi are eaten. They were easily able to write out their reports and recipes. Then, we got to work making the treats.
I purchased frozen bread dough and we let it rise. I know, that's sort of cheating, not making the bread dough from scratch, so don't tell anyone! I'm swearing you to secrecy! After it rose, the kids tore off pieces and made them into flat pancake shaped pieces.
I fried the pieces of bread dough in hot oil. One recipe said to use Crisco and it really would make a difference, so I bought a fresh jug of Crisco vegetable oil. Then I wondered if the recipe meant to buy crisco that looks like lard in a can. The vegetable oil seemed to work out just fine.
I piled them up and layered the rows with paper towels to soak up the excess oil. When they cooled a bit, but were still nice and warm, we dipped them in the wojapi. So delicious!
We made the Wojapi while the bread dough was rising. You are supposed to make it with chokecherries that you pick yourself. Well... once again we cheated. I bought a bag of frozen strawberries at the grocery store. That is pretty close to the same thing, right?
I figured strawberries would be a safe choice for the wojapi. The kids didn't like the sound of the word, and they had already some hesitation about how it would taste. They were concerned about the chokecherries. Would they choke? They didn't really want to try it. They love strawberries, so that would be a safe berry choice. Turned out, that was a good call. The strawberries were great!
First, we dumped about half the bag of strawberries into a soup pot. I think we had about 4 - 6 cups of strawberries. We added 2 cups of water and brought it to a boil, then added a cup of sugar. The recipe also called for some cornstarch and I'm pretty sure I messed this part up. I think I added too much cornstarch because it seemed thin, but the next day it thickened up to an almost pudding consistency in the fridge, and my husband insisted that it should be more of a sauce texture. The recipes I found online varied. Oh well, the texture isn't nearly as important as the taste and it tasted amazingly good!
The girls put out their fry bread an wojapi on the cultural foods buffet table at school during their winter concert and it all disappeared pretty quickly. That's a good thing! They presented their reports in the classroom earlier in the day.
