Charlo's frybread chef: It's all about tradition

For Nancy Vaughan, the frybread she makes every year for Charlo’s Fourth of July festivities is a matter of tradition.

While she’s Salish, the frybread is not. She was given the recipe by her sisters-in-law, full blood Navajo women, married to her brothers. “They taught me how,” she said Friday, as she shaped dough into smooth balls to rise.

The difference between Salish and Navajo frybread? She suspects it’s the powdered milk she mixes with flour, water and baking soda. “But I don’t know because I’ve never made Salish.”

She started preparations at 12:30 p.m. July 3 with 75 pounds of flour and the hefty Hobart commercial mixer her husband, Pete Vaughan, gave her 15 years ago. By 6 p.m., she had several stainless vats of dough prepared.

On Friday, she and her daughter, RaeCille Vaughan, set up shop adjacent to the Charlo Post Office. Nancy pulled handfuls of dough out of a container, shaped them into plump, round balls, and set them on steel trays, covered with cloth.

Meanwhile, RaeCille began to flatten and stretch the balls into rounds, each with a hole in its center, and plopped the plate-sized pieces into a vat of boiling oil, one at a time. As they turned a deliciously crispy brown, she fished them out and passed them on to her helpers, Carson Maze and his grandmother, Jeanette Hungerford. They, in turn, were taking orders from the long line of customers, and for those who requested it, slathering pieces with scoops of huckleberry butter.  

Proceeds from Friday’s sale will help Carson travel to London, England, this summer where the 5’11” point guard will play basketball with the U16 Northwest USA team. He’s going to be a junior at Mead High School in Spokane, but his grandparents, Brandon and Jeanette Hungerford, live in Ronan and both work in healthcare.

RaeCille, a registered nurse at St. Luke Community Healthcare, says she has worked with the Hungerfords for years. She also knew that Carson’s grandmother “has been working hard and sending him to all of these basketball camps, big ones, in California, Washington, all over,” she said.

So when she asked her mom about giving him half the proceeds from Friday’s sales, her mom replied, “no. We’re giving it all to him.”

The hole in the middle

Nancy estimates that she began making frybread 35 years ago. Her first time was for the Arlee powwow, where she worked alongside her sister-in-law, Gladys Begay Brown.

“So that's sort of where it all started,” she says. “We had a booth and all my nieces and nephews and kids came down and helped me. And then we just camped right down there.”

She remembers when Colonel Doug Allard, owner of Allard’s Trading Post in St. Ignatius, rode by on his horse, enroute to the powwow, and asked Nancy to sell him her recipe.

“And I says ‘no.’ And he says, ‘why not?’ And I says, ‘because you just want to make money. And this is very traditional.’ He started laughing.”

“And he never did get it either,” she recalls. “I could be as stubborn as he could be.”

She has since shared the recipe with her daughter and three granddaughters. RaeCille has been helping her mom for at least 30 years. She vows to continue the tradition and says at least one of her daughters makes frybread on the Fourth of July, serving Indian tacos to the entire crew at their ranch in Idaho.

Nancy, who turned 80 this year, is in no hurry to relinquish her reputation as one of the Mission Valley’s finest frybread chefs. “I'm going to go as long as I can,” she says.

“This is tradition,” she adds, gesturing toward the street and sidewalk, packed with Fourth of July celebrants. “And they need to be a part of my tradition.”

Mother and daughter have differing opinions as to why there’s a hole in the middle of each piece of frybread before it gets dropped in the fryer.

“They say that the hole in the middle is to drain the grease,” RaeCille says. “But I'd like to believe it's for the huckleberry butter to run down the front of their shirts for good advertisement.”

“Daughter,” scolds Nancy, “it’s to let the bad spirits out.”

Either way, the hole must work. There were no bad spirits at Nancy’s frybread stand last Friday – only a few shirts with telltale huckleberry stains.

    RaeCille Vaughan prepares to toss her mom's frybread dough into a vat of hot oil. She says the hole in the middle is to hold the huckleberry butter; her mom says it's "to let the bad spirits out." (Kristi Niemeyer/Leader)
  

    High school basketball star Carson Maze of Spokane and his grandmother, Jeanette Hungerford of Ronan, sold frybread last Friday in Charlo to help finance Carson's trip to Britain as part of an all-star team. (Kristi Niemeyer/Leader)