The Chinle Flea Market is held every day (with Fridays being the busiest and having the largest…read morenumber of vendors) on a large dirt lot at the intersection of US-191 and Indian Rte 2092. We decided to visit on the way out of town on a Friday hoping to try some more traditional Navajo food before driving to Page. Arriving a bit before 9 AM, most of the food stalls hadn't finished setting up yet, but there was still plenty of stuff to see. As with most of the Navajo Nation flea markets, it's kind of an ad hoc, drive through place. Most customers were driving between stalls; we were the only ones walking!
This is a really interesting market with vendors selling tires and hay near the entrance, jewelry and arts on the side, even people selling live chickens and turkeys! Most of the cooked food is located in the center, although there are a couple of stalls selling bread and baked goods on the periphery. We picked up some bread from one stall:
Leeyilzhooz ($5) - This a very interesting corn leaf wrapped tamale-like object. I love the decorative ties placed around the bound corn flour dumpling. It seems to be baked rather than steamed given all the char around the edges of the husk. Inside is essentially a cornmeal cake, mixed with brown sugar and raisins. It's slightly sweet and is pretty smooth, a bit different from a typical tamale texture. Since it's not steamed, it's dry, yet doesn't feel tough or too dense. I was only able to find information about this dish with a slightly different spelling "Łeeh Yilzhoozh" or "Łei Yil Zhoozh"
Yeast Bread ($5) - This includes a pan of 12 dinner roll looking breads. There is no salt added to the bread at all, making it kind of dry, a little sweet, but really bland. It's nothing like a fluffy dinner roll I thought it would be and is instead crumbly due to how dry it is. I believe it's traditional to not add salt to bread in Navajo cooking from the limited research I've done. Unfortunately, it makes the bread taste sad, bland, and floury.
We also found a stall selling pinon nuts and steam corn, way cheaper than grocery stores. We ended up buying a bag of steam corn for $20 and some roasted pinon nuts for $20. All ready to cook some Navajo food at home, supplemented by some items we bought at the Bashas' Dine' grocery store the previous day.
I think most of the food stalls open between 10 and 11 AM. Since we had a long drive ahead of us, we just picked up food from the very first one that opened up.
Steam Corn Stew ($13) - Woah, this stew is so interesting. It's essentially charred mutton bones and fat, stewed for hours upon hours, until everything renders out into an unctuous, fatty liquid. It's bold, it's oily, it's fatty, it somehow has an almost buttery feel and flavor. Incompletely rendered fat floats on top, giving an extremely mutton gamey flavor. The ingredients in the stew include only steam corn and mutton. That's all. The steam corn is quite interesting. It looks a little like hominy, but the texture is quite a bit firmer and it has a charred roasty flavor rather than the nutty and subtle corn flavor of hominy. The mutton is really tender and not gamey at all. They are very generous with the corn and mutton, piling it up way over the height of the broth. As with most other Navajo food, the stew isn't salted much, so it relies entirely on the flavor of the corn and mutton to elevate the dish.
The Steam Corn Stew comes with frybread. This one is tender and fluffy on the edges with a center thinner area that is crisp. When it came out fresh from the fryer, I could see a small pool of oil in the center, but it quickly soaked into the bread. The frybread kind of tastes like old oil but we were the first customers so that can't be true, right? Or perhaps they don't change the oil out very often.
Navajo Tea ($1) - This is a greenthread tea that tastes like a concentrated, more rounded Chamomile tea with a slight mint essence. It's quite a strong brew.
Navajo Burger ($12) - As with the steam corn stew, the Navajo burger is a relatively simple dish that consists of a piece of frybread encapsulating two commercial grilled and charred hamburger patties, some shredded lettuce, thin sliced tomato, spicy raw onion, and one fragrant and vegetal green chile. That's it. No sauce, no seasoning other than the salt inside the patties. And again, with the piece of frybread that tastes kind of like old oil. I definitely wish I had gotten the tortilla instead.
The Chinle Flea Market is an excellent place to spend an hour or two browsing and eating. While the food is a bit hit and miss, the variety and the chance to try traditional Navajo cuisine is unparalleled. There are so many traditional dishes available here that can't be found at restaurants in the Navajo Nation or anywhere else.
Note: Most places accept cash or Zelle only
