Knowing the Story Behind Your Food

KNOWING THE STORY BEHIND YOUR FOOD

BY MICHELLE PAWELSKI // PHOTOS BY VISIT RAPID CITY

Like many growing up in the late 1960s and ‘70s, Scott Brinker’s childhood revolved around getting up early, running to the television and turning on Saturday morning cartoons. In between Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny episodes were commercials for Pop-Tarts, Trix cereal and other high-sugar breakfast foods marketed solely for the young, captured audience.

“You wanted to be like the cool kids on TV,” said Brinker, a corporate chef for the regional Monument Health hospitals and owner of Bashful Bison, the recently opened Main Street deli.

However, the billions worth of marketing toward these highly processed foods created something more than giddy kids. It brought a trend of increased heart disease, diabetes, celiac, and other health problems, Scott said. “You can correlate the poor health of the United States going up with the amount of manufactured food that the country makes. The obvious evidence shows that we have poisoned our people with fast, cheap calories.”

Scott’s mission is to change this decadeslong trend one meal at a time. He opened Bashful Bison with the same vision that he has spent years promoting in health care – create healthy meals using fresh, sustainable products from South Dakota farmers. He wants everyone to know the “story of their food.”

“My vision is to sell more honest food that is locally sourced. We have so much stuff right in this area – farmers and ranchers, other small-time food producers with extraordinary quality and who are extraordinary people,” Scott said. “People don’t realize that they are here, and I really wanted to push that.”

Scott’s position at the hospital enabled him to build partnerships with several local producers that provided good, clean, pesticide-free products. “I was able to develop producers that could do that for me, but realized I still was not reaching a broad enough audience.”

Enter the Bashful Bison.

“What better time to bring this to the community than right now when I’ve already got the sourcing for all the food.”

The blueprint for the deli came from a project he did back in culinary school in the 1980s. Originally graduating with a chemistry degree from the University of South Dakota Springfield, Scott ditched being a chemist and went back to working in restaurants, a career that had supported him through college. After 10 years, Scott decided to go to culinary school at Mitchell Community College. “Part of the program and training involved writing a menu, concept and business plan for your food service. This is what I wrote,” Scott said of the Bashful Bison. “Same concept, different motivation. Back then, I wanted to feature South Dakota things, but it didn’t dawn on me that I could get a lot of these things from local producers.” Scott’s first two decades working in food were at fine-dining establishments where cost did not matter. However, the focus on where the food came from also did not matter, Scott said. “Not a lot of thought was put into the story of the food. It never really bothered me until I left the restaurant industry.”

Scott’s path led him to health care where his focus turned to creating healthy, locally sourced meals. “It was in the late 1990s when I started thinking that we are not feeding good food to the patients. I started to teach my cooks to cook again. We started ordering fresh vegetables and fruit, stopped opening boxes with preprocessed food, and started to combat the whole thing.”

He worked in hospitals in Minnesota and Illinois before returning to South Dakota eight years ago. Scott oversees all the Monument Health system hospitals and has some accounts in Glenwood Springs, CO, three in Wyoming and a couple in Minnesota. He says his years in health care along with opening the Bashful Bison is his way of trying to change the decades of harm the food industry has had on individuals.

“This is a statement to the food industry that did us all wrong, especially me since I bought into it, but I am going to try to do something to try and reverse that.

Scott has a deck built off the hospital cafeteria where he has a grill and an herb garden as well as an acre of land outside the Sleep Center with a greenhouse and raised garden beds. He eventually hopes to have an orchard. He currently has three apple trees.

“At Bashful Bison, I want to support a broader base of farms,” Scott said adding he plans to work with Cox Family Farm, Black Hills Mushrooms and Moonrise Mountain Farm.

Featured sandwiches at the deli also focus on keeping local with names like Paha Sapa, Hermosa, Edgemont and Sturgis. “Whenever I post something, I always say where it is from. I want people to know where their food comes from, who does it affect, what is it doing to the environment, and what it is doing to their health and economy.”

Not only is Scott telling the story of the food he creates, but he is also investing into the community. Last year at the hospital he purchased $680,000 from local producers, which was down from previous years due to COVID. Just with the food Scott purchases for the hospital, his local partners have expanded – adding acreage, livestock and employees. He hopes to increase that even further with the Bashful Bison.

“Food is a big deal here. Less than one percent of all the food that comes into Rapid City is grown in the area,” Scott said. “And there is a surplus every year in these little farms. If we could get 10 percent served in restaurants to be local, that would be huge for the economy.”

Currently, Scott shares the East part of the former Botticelli’s Italian Restaurant with the recently opened, family-owned Slangin Dough Bakery. He hopes to get the Bashful Bison up and running and eventually hand it down to someone who will carry on his vision of encouraging everyone to know the story of their food.

Bashful Bison is currently open Tuesday – Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. at 523 Main Street.