Kalama’s Turns Fry Bread Into Huge Roadside Indian Tacos

The crisp, golden disks come topped with homemade chili, cheddar, lettuce, onions and sour cream.

(jeffreyw / Flickr)

By Nicole Vulcan

If you reach the sole gas station along Highway 26 as you enter Warm Springs, turn around—the fry bread stand is behind you in the sparse park along the south side of the road. It’s worth doubling back for the crisp, golden disks served with honey and/or sugar at Kalama’s Fry Bread (Wasco Street and Paiute Avenue, Warm Springs). You can even make one a meal by turning it into a taco: the fry bread can be topped with homemade chili, cheddar, lettuce, onions and sour cream. They’re huge and easily shareable. I split mine with a fry bread noob, who said, “It tastes like an elephant ear but savory.” If elephant ears actually had taco toppings, I’d probably pay the exorbitant prices and brave the carny terrors of fairs more often. Thought to be a tradition started by Navajo people forced to subsist on lard, flour and processed sugar as they made the “Long Walk” from Arizona to New Mexico in 1864, the basic fry bread recipe eventually spread to other tribes, including the Warm Springs, Wasco and Paiute.

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