Like a Yellowstone
COWBOY
It is one of the most popular TV series in recent memory, with record viewing figures and millions dreaming of life on an American ranch. But the Dutton family and their wranglers need feeding. RUPERT BATES talks to Gabriel Guilbeau.
Never meet your heroes they say. But what about your meat heroes? I’ve broken brisket with many great professional chefs and home cooks over the years, but I’m not sure I’ve had a more enthralling transatlantic conversation than with Gabriel Guilbeau.
Who? Well, if I said everyone, including Kevin Costner, calls him Gator, is that a clue? You may have seen the epic American modern Western TV series Yellowstone. If you haven’t, once you’ve finished reading this magazine and cooking up Gator’s BBQ pulled pork, Dutton ranch style, sit down and binge-watch the Taylor Sheridan masterpiece.
Gator is the cook on set. He was meant to be simply – albeit at gargantuan scale – catering for the cast and crew. The man in the background churning out meal after meal, be it on a Montana mountain or in a Texas desert, treating his diners all the same.
Then one day series creator, writer and director Taylor Sheridan said: “Gator, I forgot to say you’re in the show today.”
“I thought no big deal. I’ve been in the background before. Then there was a camera in my face and Taylor said ‘go’. I said ‘what do you mean go? Do I have lines?’” says Gator.
“Taylor said, ‘just do Gator stuff’, so I made a soup!”
On another episode he was told at the last minute that he would be making another cameo appearance.
“’You’re in the house, just you and Kev,’ said Taylor, as I reminded him I was not an actor.”
“What the f**k is this Gator?” said Costner, as Gator served ranch patriarch John Dutton grilled octopus. Mentioning Gator by name was not in the script, but Costner argued that surely he’d use his name if swearing at him.
“I guess when they say your actual name on TV there is no turning back.”
Another appearance was in the final season out in the Texas desert, when Gator cuts the head off a snake, announcing it is great on the grill, tasting like alligator.
“I swung the axe and nailed the head of a rattle snake. One take Gator. Who am I to take up people’s time on a busy set!”
Gator is great company and clearly an exceptional cook too. Asking how his food journey started, he replies: “With eating.”
“I’ve been lucky through my family experiencing lots of different food cultures, with my father a professional chef, running a restaurant business. My first BBQ memory was cooking steaks with dad in the backyard aged about 12.”
He grew up as part of the Cajun community in Louisiana; the family running Prejean’s restaurant and becoming the ‘guy on the grill’ among friends and family at home. “Good steaks and good times – the art and joy of cooking.”
Gator enrolled in a Los Angeles culinary school, but two weeks in, his tutor asked what he was doing there, as he clearly knew it all already. Course cancelled and refunded and then a call from his father, David ‘Cajun’ Guilbeau, a renowned chef on film sets himself, to join him in Baton Rouge.
“It was harsh weather, 18-hour days and hungry crews. But it all made sense to me. You have one job; get the food right. I loved it and I was away, pocketing $1000 and thinking ‘I’m rich!’ That was 15 years ago and I have fed many different crews across, movies, commercials and TV since, both low and big budget productions. I like to think I’ve made a name for myself in terms of the care and quality I bring to the food.”
Let’s head to Montana. It is easy, as you are transported through the wonders of cinematography to breathtaking and rugged landscapes, to forget these are real people in a real place, and they need to eat – a lot.
Gator makes sure he is onside with the local suppliers and farms, although on a major production like Yellowstone the ‘I don’t care what it costs’ approach comes in handy.
“And, when it comes to eating, you have to remember I am the only choice. There are no coffee shops, no delis, no Ubers to take you to restaurants. So I recommend they make a selection from what I’ve got!”
Fresh produce would arrive every morning and one day 80 chickens arrived still warm from the kill. “That’s how fresh they were, so I cooked them straightaway.”
Like an interior designer ignoring the TV murder in the kitchen and focusing on what brand the worktops are, BBQ enthusiasts watching Yellowstone look past the Beth Dutton meltdown or cowboy cattle drive to what is smoking in the background and sizzling on Gator’s grill.
Gator recalls the big concert scene out in the pasture in the last series, with the whole town in attendance. “I cooked over a live fire next to the stage and reckon I served about 600 ribeye steaks – slicing it up, one tray at a time and not one person ever asked for a plate, fork, or napkin.”
The lead actors are effusive in their praise for Gator, with Luke Grimes, aka Kayce Dutton, hailing his steaks the best in the world.
“I don’t do anything special. Good quality meat, plenty of salt and sear it
until it gives up its juices. It’s about the timing, the elements and the location – you might be eating my food in a field, up a mountain, or on a horse. And, no, I don’t have time for a chimichurri sauce! There is barely time for the meat to rest; these guys get 10 seconds to eat on the hoof.”
This is as far removed from the starched napkins of a Michelin-Star restaurant as you can get, apart from the quality of the food. Many chefs, seduced by the backdrop and living and working in cowboy country, have said they’d love to work with him.
“I’m not sure many would survive. You can be cooking in a mud pit one day, a desert storm the next. This is not about perfect plating (there are often no plates) and you can’t be married to any recipe, or even a plan. There is no room or time to plan anything. The game can change every half hour.”
He recalls working on other Taylor Sheridan productions in Texas, such as Lioness and 1883, one of the Yellowstone origin series, in unbearable heat, with no shade and not a breath of wind, but having to fire up big grills. You could only cook for 20 minutes before getting a tap on the shoulder to stand down and walk into the refrigerator truck to cool down.
Whether at work or play, Gator’s favourite toys are his two Meadow Creek smokers from Pennsylvania, although he will cook with ‘anything you can put fire in’ – be it griddles, cowboy cauldrons, campfires or open coals. “Get in my way when I start cooking and you get run over,” says Gator, who lives in Texas, near Fort Worth, Dallas, with Taylor Sheridan not far away.
“Taylor loves to eat and wants those around him to eat too.”
I am by now so immersed in his story, I’m searching for chaps and a hat; I just need to learn how to ride a horse first. Time to flick through the Yellowstone cookbook, written, of course, by Gator.
“The trouble is, everything I do is freestyle, all about touch, smell and taste. I very rarely do recipes, so had to think hard about writing them down. They are a selection of my most popular and favourite dishes that I have cooked both on and off set, with the ranch stories behind them.”
Recipes include Cajun food such as gumbo, fried shrimp and dirty rice, as well as the cowboy food cooked on set, be it steaks, cornbread, chilli, baked beans, soups, or big bags of beef jerky. The book prefaces recipes with scenes from the series, be it Rip’s fry bread with scrambled egg and bacon, or the fire-grilled wild trout the three Dutton brothers cook out fishing. There are sides and desserts too in the book, as well as drinks including, of course, Beth’s smoothie: “Two scoops of ice cream, three shots of vodka Gator,” and a Huckleberry whiskey sour.
Gator’s BBQ bison burgers with maple bourbon bacon get my vote, as do his honey bourbon barbecued ribs. “When ribs are paired with bourbon that’s when magic happens.”
Introducing his smoked pulled pork recipe, Gator says: “Barbecue. What can I say? It’s part of what has gotten me here, as the head of craft services at Yellowstone. Everyone on the crew – all the ranch hands – run over the second I open the smoker.”
His last BBQ on earth? Smoke a whole turkey with a side of corn on the cob. Broccoli is another favourite vegetable on the fire, with olive oil, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. “Chop the broccoli in large chunks, put them on the hottest, biggest flame to char on the outside, but crunchy on the inside.”
He is currently developing a range of his own hot sauces and has a BBQ chef’s knife, developed with Idaho-based New West KnifeWorks.
There is plenty more to come from Sheridan and chef Gator, including a second series of Landman, a third series of Lioness, and a Yellowstone spin off, starring Beth Dutton (Kelly Reilly) and husband Rip Wheeler (Cole Hauser).
Talking to Gator about the huge popularity of BBQ in the UK, he immediately responds: “Where’s my invitation? I’ve never been, but I’d love to come over to cook, eat and share BBQ stories, especially if it gets me away from the furnace of a Texan summer.”
Someone needs to get an invitation in the post, even if BBQ rattle snake might be a stretch when it comes to sourcing meat.
Yellowstone: The Official Dutton Ranch Family Cookbook
Published by Titan Books London.
Gabriel ‘Gator’ Guilbeau, with Kim Laidlaw.
Unit still photography: Emerson Miller.
Food photography: Waterbury Publications Inc.