Traveling Locavore: Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel Dining Room, Yellowstone National Park
When my family was planning this summer’s National Parks Extravaganza, I did a little research on local eating in the cities through which we were traveling as we moved from park to park – Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Seattle. As expected, I was able to find multiple restaurants and often a farmers’ market open the day of our travel through each city. However, I figured the National Parks food service offerings themselves wouldn’t even be part of my search – of course there’d be nothing local there! It was food service food. Even worse, government food service food. Something to be avoided when possible and put up with when unavoidable. Certainly nothing promising for a fan of local foods, or any foodie for that matter.
Our very first stop forced me to rethink that assumption. Boy, did I underestimate the potential of the National Parks food service. The food was often very good, and several stops were a traveling locavore’s dream. Yellowstone was a standout.
