106: Rethinking Cowboy Food through the Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook with Jackie Alpers

Food on popular television shows can be a storytelling mechanism, particularly in terms of building a sense of place and history. While the television show can tell a specific story, there can be a whole world to explore extending beyond this, which is rife for creative exploration for cookbook writers and recipe developers. 

My guest this week, Jackie Alpers, is here to share her own experiences with this how they played into the concept of her new cookbook, The Unofficial Yellowstone Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by the Dutton Family Ranch. Jackie Alpers is a cookbook author, food photographer and recipe developer who experiments with regional culinary influences while exploring food history and culture, and the relationship that people have with food and drink. 

Today we unpack the idea of cowboy food and its role in ideas of the north and southwest of America, how food photography and recipe creation can tell a story about not just what you see on tv but deepen the social and geographic landscapes of recipes, and why having the unofficial and official Yellowstone cookbooks coming out in close proximity to each other isn’t as bad a situation as one might think!

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