The Marvelous Bread of the Pueblo Nations

Growing up on the Navajo Nation reservation in Crownpoint, New Mexico, traditional Native American foods weren't a major part of my childhood. Our meals were typically simple and utilitarian: potatoes, ground beef, rice, and canned vegetables. Most of what we ate didn't leave a lasting impression. However, there was one exception: Pueblo bread.

In our home, hearty dishes like chicken and rice, red chile pozole, or slow-cooked chili beans were often complemented by what we call Kiis’áanii bread. (“Kiis’áanii” means the Pueblo people in Navajo.) This bread, made from white flour and enriched with butter or lard, and seasoned with a hint of salt, begins as a large, domed loaf that’s usually divided into smaller sections before baking. Traditionally baked in an outdoor beehive-shaped clay oven called a horno, it emerges with a robust crust, dense crumb, and a smooth, velvety texture. Its simplicity is its charm — an elemental creation.

In the days my relatives nostalgically refer to as “the wagon days,” my great-great-grandmother and her family would load their wagon with rugs and mutton for trade with the Laguna Pueblos. The three-day trek was worth it for the fluffy Pueblo bread and stew that followed. I’m fortunate to have a loaf within reach, just a seven-minute drive from the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

After moving from Crownpoint to Albuquerque a few years ago, Pueblo bread still graces my table occasionally, alongside over-medium eggs in the morning and mutton stew for special occasions. I haven’t tried baking it myself — the recipe, honed over generations of Pueblo bakers, is beyond any online guide’s reach. It’s a well-known fact among Native communities that Pueblos make it best, and I’m content to spend a few dollars for a fresh loaf now and then.

Although I cherish this bread deeply, my experience has been limited to just one variety. The bread from Laguna Pueblo that I grew up with was affectionately known as “elephant toes” due to its resemblance to an elephant’s foot. Yet, New Mexico is home to 19 distinct Pueblo nations, each with its own unique bread recipe shaped by age-old family traditions, local ingredients, and the distinctive touch of individual bakers.

Two years ago, I launched the Toasted Sister Podcast, focused on Indigenous cuisine, to uncover the reasons behind our traditional eating practices. Much like other culinary treasures, the unique twists on Pueblo bread are often closely guarded secrets. Nonetheless, I was eager to visit several bakers and explore the diverse ways Pueblo bread is made, and understand why the Pueblo people have dedicated themselves to this craft for centuries.

My journey began in Jemez Pueblo, 47 miles north of Albuquerque, where the rugged desert landscape transitions into the Jemez Mountains. At the Jemez Pueblo government building, I met Dorell Toya-Upshaw, part of a long-standing family of bakers, whose mother is renowned for her Pueblo bread. Toya-Upshaw awaited me in her weathered blue van, guiding me along an unpaved road through a labyrinth of timeworn adobe houses, most with satellite dishes, clotheslines, and sloping hornos.

Just two minutes off the main road, we arrived at the single-story adobe home of Toya-Upshaw and her family. Inside, it was around 100 degrees with the wood stove and oven running — ideal conditions for dough to rise. Here, Toya-Upshaw introduced me to her mother, Lyda Toya.

Toya’s small stature seemed even more diminutive next to a massive dining table almost entirely covered with bowls of bread dough, cookie dough, sugar, baking pans, and a small cardboard box of lard. With a stylish mound of jet-black hair piled on top of her head, Toya immediately began dividing a mound of fluffy dough into smaller portions. Using greased hands, she shaped some of the dough into balls, pressed others into loaf pans, and cut slits into the remaining pieces. The latter were shaped like flowers, as they open up in the oven like blossoms. It looked quite different from the elaborate elephant toes of my childhood, so I asked Toya if her shapes had any special cultural significance. She smiled and replied, “It’s just our decoration.”

Toya learned her baking skills from her mother and aunties, perfecting the craft through years of dedicated practice. The batch of bread she prepared for me was modest compared to the usual dozen or so loaves she bakes twice a week for sale at the nearby Walatowa Convenience Store on New Mexico State Road 4. On feast days, which are Pueblo religious holidays celebrating Catholic saints, Toya can bake up to four times that amount, working through approximately 100 pounds of dough. “We use the bread to feed our Pueblo families and many Navajo friends who visit,” Toya explained. “And when they leave, we send them home with bread, cookies, and pies. That’s why we make extra.”

As we waited for the bread to bake, we excitedly discussed other Jemez dishes, like the renowned enchiladas wrapped in large handmade tortillas, filled with melted cheese and smothered in red chile sauce, and the sweet cornmeal dessert commonly known as Indian pudding. Gradually, the inviting aroma of baking bread filled the house. Without a timer, Toya opened the oven to reveal an array of golden-brown domed and split loaves. Though smaller than the ones I remembered, they retained the same rich, savory flavor with a subtle sweetness.

As Toya continued to pull out steaming loaves from the oven, her daughter, Toya-Upshaw, stood by her side, observing intently. “Bread is a significant traditional food,” Toya-Upshaw shared. “It’s vital for our survival.” She was referring not only to the essential financial support the bread provides but also to how baking and consuming it serve as acts of cultural preservation.

As I prepared to leave, the Toyas invited me to their next feast day and packed my car’s trunk with bread and cookies. The aroma of toasted yeast mixed with my coconut air freshener during the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Taos, the next destination on my bread journey, and the location of one of the few Native-owned restaurants in the country.

Although Pueblo bread is now an integral part of local culture, its origins are not entirely indigenous. Before flour was introduced, Pueblos and many tribes used ground nuts, corn, and beans to create simple breads and cakes. “When the Spanish arrived in the late 1500s, they brought wheat with them,” explains Jon Ghahate, a cultural educator at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, as well as an expert on the horno.

Key ingredients like lard, butter, and milk didn’t reach the Pueblos until the late 19th century, when Americans forced Native peoples onto reservations and began distributing food rations. Yeast also became part of the recipe during this period, marking the beginning of the Pueblo bread we recognize today. “It’s certainly considered a traditional food now,” notes Ghahate.

While Pueblo bread holds a special place in the hearts of its people, it also serves as a subtle reminder of the ongoing effects of colonization experienced by Native Americans. Fry bread, a controversial dish with a complex history, became part of our culinary tradition not by choice. Many in the Native community are engaging in challenging discussions about the impact these introduced foods have had on our culture and health.

The journey from Jemez to Taos meanders upward through towering pines that cast shadows over patches of lingering snow from late fall, passing through the Valles Caldera National Preserve, a breathtaking 13-mile valley carved into the mountaintops. This swift shift from rugged desert to lush high-altitude landscape epitomizes New Mexico’s terrain, the ancestral Native land our people have cherished for centuries.

Driving through the San Ildefonso, Pojoaque, and Ohkay Owingeh pueblos, I emerged from the forest into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, where the town of Taos sits adjacent to Taos Pueblo. This multistory adobe settlement, surrounded by smaller adobe homes, has been inhabited for over a thousand years and was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. The area is rich with hornos, and there’s an abundance of bread available in the historic homes-turned-tourist shops near the main square. Just a short drive from the Pueblo is Tiwa Kitchen, one of the few Native-owned restaurants in the nation.

Tiwa Kitchen, operated by local couple Debbie and Ben Sandoval, features a menu that includes local trout, bison burgers, Indian tacos (fry bread topped with traditional taco ingredients), regional produce, and baked goods like Pueblo bread and horno pastries. Debbie and her mother-in-law helped build the oven, with Debbie noting, “If you make it, then you know it,” as she pointed out the hot spots and nuances she considers for achieving the perfect bake.

Each day, Debbie Sandoval removes breads from the oven’s crescent-shaped opening, and they differ from those I brought from Jemez or the elephant toes of my childhood. Smaller and richly bronzed with a deep golden hue, the shapes here are the most basic I’ve encountered — simple curved loaves and clusters of dinner rolls. Yet, the taste and texture of the crumb are unmistakably familiar.

“Bread is at the heart of everything,” Debbie explained. “We bake it for every funeral, every initiation into the kiva,” the sacred space for Pueblo ceremonies. “Any celebration involves bread.” Beyond its cultural significance, bread serves as a vital economic asset for the Pueblo people. Priced between $3 and $8 per loaf, its sales provide a crucial income source for families.

Pueblo bread is just one of the many dishes the Sandovals have been serving for the past 25 years at their restaurant, created to meet the demand of tourists asking where to eat after visiting Taos Pueblo. Over time, the restaurant has grown into a unique establishment, not only a local treasure but a rare find nationwide. At Tiwa Kitchen, guests savor local ingredients and traditional Native flavors, contributing significantly to the preservation and revival of these culinary traditions.

Every Saturday at the local flea market in Gallup, New Mexico, Jimmy Paywa and his wife, Marlene, set up a long table overflowing with baked goods. Their stall is one of many at the market, which serves as a platform for showcasing various Pueblo breads, including Zuni, Santo Domingo, Acoma, and Laguna, among others.

For nearly twenty years, the Paywas have been crafting Zuni bread at their home, located 40 miles south of Gallup in the Zuni Pueblo, a quaint town surrounded by striking white and red mesas. As the westernmost Pueblo in New Mexico, where the Zuni language is spoken — a linguistic isolate with no known relation to other languages — the bread they bake is just as unique as their heritage.

Their home, likely named after the family, also functions as a commercial bakery, complete with a professional mixer and a spacious stainless steel island. A dedicated back room is used for cooling and bagging fresh loaves. The Paywas frequently offer tours of their bread-making process, showcasing their enormous horno, which experts claim is the largest in New Mexico, approximately three times the size of a standard horno and about 8 feet wide. “We can fit up to 100 loaves,” Jimmy explained. “We usually bake 85 to 88.”

The bread-making routine begins at 7 a.m. with lighting the horno. “It takes around three wheelbarrows full of wood to get it heated,” Jimmy said. The process of preparing the horno is consistent across Pueblos: After the firewood burns down and the flames subside, the oven reaches the optimal temperature of about 450 degrees. Hot coals are removed with custom tools, and the oven floor is cleaned of ashes with juniper branches soaked in water. The loaves are then placed inside, and the oven is sealed with a wooden board and wet towels stuffed into the gaps.

“We offer both sourdough and traditional yeast bread,” Jimmy mentioned. Like Lyda Toya, he doesn’t use a timer, or at least I didn’t see one. After 17 years of baking by intuition — a skill passed down from his parents — he’s perfected the art. “My father used to feel a bit uneasy about the fact that traditionally, women handle the bread-making,” he said. “But he eventually got past that. He would clean the oven and place the dough inside while my mom and sisters mixed it. Then they’d all pile into an old bus and take the bread to the flea market every Saturday to sell.”

When Jimmy judged the bread to be done, he reopened the oven to check the loaves’ golden hue. He removed one to ensure it produced a hollow sound when tapped with his knuckles, then used a long baker’s peel to move the fresh loaves to a table where Marlene was waiting. She used heat-resistant gloves to transfer them into large plastic tubs.

I inquired about the variety of shapes — far more elaborate than those in Jemez and Taos, each featuring its own petals, splits, and points. Jimmy explained that these designs originated because the splits made the bread easier to tear apart without the need for knives or cutting boards. One particularly striking shape resembled an old-fashioned baseball mitt, with six finger-like sections and several protruding points.

“People refer to this shape as the bear claw, dinosaur foot, or the Dolly Parton,” he noted.

“Why the Dolly Parton reference?” I asked.

“It’s because of the lobes,” he chuckled.

Since then, I’ve been calling Zuni bread the “Dolly Parton.”

Located just off Interstate 40 in the quaint town of Casa Blanca, New Mexico, stands the Dancing Eagle Casino, a striking structure resembling a grand circus tent and part of the 21 Indian gaming casinos across the state. Nearby, the Dancing Eagle Marketplace adjoins a renowned bakery known as Grandma Jo’s.

Inside, you'll encounter the familiar setup of a bakery counter and a lit display case showcasing an array of tempting sweets. The walls feature framed photos of Elvis Presley and the bakery's beloved founder, Josephine Whitmore, who keep a vigilant watch over the establishment.

Grandma Jo’s bakery, established in 1998, realized a lifelong aspiration. Today, Terese Sarracino and her sister Camille Whitmore manage the daily operations. The bakery has expanded to employ six full-time staff who craft around 100 loaves of bread daily, along with cookies, cinnamon rolls, brownies, turnovers, and their latest hit, cream puffs.

Yet, the soul of the bakery is its bread. “We can’t do without it,” Sarracino declared. “I used to claim I could eat an entire loaf.” They use pizza ovens, a choice Sarracino later regretted as she showed me the dilapidated horno next to her home. “It’s a vanishing craft,” she lamented. “I’d love to revive the tradition.”

This is the Pueblo bread I know and love: elephant toes. Grandma Jo’s loaves, with their perfectly moist interiors and delicate crusts, are a staple in my home. My parents always bring some when they visit me in Albuquerque. While I could easily devour an entire loaf, I usually share it. This bread evokes memories of home and festive family gatherings. It’s delicious like all Pueblo breads — with a subtle yeast flavor that pairs perfectly with a robust red chile pozole, and carries a sense of pride from transforming the hardships of the past into warm, communal comfort.

Ultimately, it’s just bread — a basic, unassuming staple of daily life. When I asked Jimmy Paywa in Zuni how he enjoys his bread, he grinned and replied, “toasted with butter.”

Marlene, his wife, chimed in with a smile, “and with a slice of bologna.”

Andi Murphy is the creator and host of the Toasted Sister Podcast, a show dedicated to Indigenous cuisine. She also works as a photographer and producer for Native America Calling, a live radio program covering Native American topics and issues. Fact checked by Pearly HuangCopy edited by Rachel P. Kreiter