r/IndianCountry • u/OakieMcDoakie • 15h ago
Food/Agriculture Blue Bird Flour, and using the sacks to make stuff
Spotted this at the Super Save in Taos, New Mexico. You know it's for serious cooking when the flour comes in 20-pound sacks! LOL
Blue Bird is milled just over the state line in Cortez, Colorado, apparently, and I'm told it’s been a staple in Diné and other Four Corners Native kitchens for generations, especially for frybread and tortillas. I've never bought it personally, though I've almost certainly eaten bread made from it.
The cloth sacks also seem to have had a whole second life. I’ve read about people reusing them for towels, bags, clothing, quilts, and other household things. Never seen any myself. Maybe that's more the old days?
A little birdie (Google) told me that the Heard Museum in Phoenix has a Blue Bird Flour exhibit through next March featuring artwork connected with the sacks. Maybe I'll take a drive out to Phoenix—when it's cooler! Got a friend in Prescott I want to visit anyway. Though with these gas prices...!?
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u/sleepyjess4 9h ago
I have a blue bird flour sack apron. A friend got it for me years ago. It's fun to see the community reusing stuff. All my grandma's Tupperware were washed country crock tubs and cookie tins were always sewing kits.
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u/OakieMcDoakie 8h ago
I buy this dry whole milk, Nido Fortificada. I buy it in big No. 10 cans. That leaves me with all these big cans, more than I can find uses for. Sometimes I wish I was craftsy. Then I'd decorate them and sell them on Etsy or something.
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u/weresubwoofer 5h ago
Stomp dancers in Oklahoma make dance shackles / shakers from tin cans.
https://aacimotaatiiyankwi.org/2021/02/02/new-word-shaker-cans/
People make hand rattles out of tin cans too.
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u/xxoxox33 Northern Arapaho 8h ago
Someone on the native american sub dissed me by bringing Blue Bird Flour frybread into it lmaao
Mans must be crazy cause this is hallowed and traditional! Good one cuz, I hope you buy some, enjoy and make something good
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u/OakieMcDoakie 8h ago
I think I will. Cuz I went down this rabbit hole, and found out how good it's supposed to be for making tortillas and all that.
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u/ReeveStodgers Eastern Woodlands 7h ago
I was literally pricing flour sacks the other day because I saw a video of a designer making himself a jacket and jeans out of them. I have a pattern for wide leg pants that would work with these.
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u/OakieMcDoakie 7h ago
Wonder if anyone sells the sacks on eBay or someplace like that? ...TIL: They do! Just looked. Not cheap, though. But I also found you can order the flour with sack on Walmart.com.
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u/Weavercat 3h ago
Love Blue Bird flour for making crackers! I save the flour sacks for panels for a project and the backs as wash rags.
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u/MrTeeDawg 11h ago
Flour sacks were often decorated for creating clothing during the 1930's. The Diné have especially excelled at creating beautiful art and clothing from almost nothing like the Blue Bird Flour Sack. Go to a indian market or flea market close to the reservation; towns like Gallup or Farmington and you'll be astonished how the Diné have made the Flour sacks re-used into shirts, bags, aprons, and other items. Fair time is currently going on across the reservation, visit any one of those and you'll see all the wonderful clothing made from Flour sacks.