Yellowstone: Food

There is nothing remarkable about the food at Yellowstone, except that the menus include a lot of bison meat, as they do in Montana.  Bison meat is supposedly healthier than regular beef (lower in fat and cholesterol) and tastes very similar.  The majority of bison in the world are raised for meat; some are pastured, some are raised in feedlots.  There is no sourcing of any of the meat on the menus at Yellowstone, although some of the hamburgers are advertised as “sustainable,” whatever that means.  Some of the seafood is marked as being certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, which I think is meaningful, and some other menu items are marked with a little logo designating them as “including sustainable or organic ingredients,” which I think is not meaningful.  There is an overall effort (on the part of the hospitality company that runs the place) to appear environmentally conscious, which is laudable if it’s real.  “Yellow Is The New Green!” was the slogan.  However, the much-touted recycling bins in the rooms were not useful to me:  recycle what?  Cans and bottles, surely, but paper?  Plastic?  And then there was the bar of soap with the hole in the middle, eliminating that wasteful soap chip.  That was just odd.

Back to the food:  I arrived with the grim expectation of eating nothing but fast food all week.  Fast food offends my body and my soul but I can’t bring a week’s worth of food on the plane, or cart it in from Bozeman, so while a guest of Yellowstone (or, rather, the resort company that runs provides all hospitality services) I was prepared to make do.  The food turned out to be a variety of institutional food, ranging from junk to fairly classy hotel food.  The menus were almost the same at each lodge.  I assume it was all factory food.  I don’t claim to know how one might serve fresh, high-quality food to so many people in such a non-agricultural location, but I long for the day.

When I got home, our garden was bursting with produce and I stood in the yard eating fresh English peas.  Home sweet home!