From Air Force to Cowboy Chef: Escoffier Grad Mason Snyder’s Unique Life Journey

TRANSCRIPT

Kirk Bachmann: Hi everyone, my name is Kirk Bachmann, and welcome back to The Ultimate Dish. Today, I am thrilled to introduce our special guest, Mason Snyder, an Escoffier graduate who currently serves as the executive chef at Feast Your Eyes Catering. Some might even know him as the Cowboy Chef, featured on Hulu’s “Chefs vs. Wild.”

Mason’s journey is as unique as it is inspiring. Before he donned the chef’s toque, he served in the United States Air Force. Then in 2017, Mason decided to turn his lifelong passion for cooking into a full-time career, and he enrolled in Escoffier’s Culinary Arts degree program, graduating in 2018.

Since then, he’s taken on a variety of dynamic roles in the purchasing world, Chef and Wilderness Guide, and is the founder of the Cowboy Chef. These experiences led him to compete in Season 1, Episode 6, of Hulu’s “Chefs vs. Wild.”

Mason describes himself as a passionate food nerd with a deep love for wild game, local ingredients, and foraged plants. His expertise truly shines in menu development and event planning.

So join us today as we chat about changing careers to pursue your dream, a typical day in the life of an executive chef, filming a TV show, and so much more.

And there he is. Good morning! How are you, chef?

Mason Snyder: Good morning, chef. How are you doing?

A Philadelphia Connection

Kirk Bachmann: I’m doing great. If I was any better, I’d be you. Good to see you. You’re in Philly, right?

Mason Snyder: I am. I’m in Philadelphia. Just moved back here in January. Still getting settled into the area.

Kirk Bachmann: I’ve always spent a little bit of time in Philadelphia. Big sports town. What’s the weather like in the summer? Humid?

Mason Snyder: Yeah. Very humid. Definitely not the same as out there in Colorado. It’s taking me a little bit to get used to. That’s for sure.

Big sports town. They are all up in arms about everything all the time.

Kirk Bachmann: That’s a good way to say it. “They’re all up in arms about everything.” You’ve got New Yorkers. You’ve got those from Philly. And then Chicago: they’re always angry about something. I grew up in Chicago. I love it.

Ironically enough, the filming of our chat today is super serendipitous. As we were chatting with you and doing our research and checking you out on LinkedIn, we saw that you worked at The Fork restaurant for a bit there in Philadelphia. We had just an incredible experience with Eli Kulp in January. We were at a super cool event in New York City in Jean-Georges’s place where Eli was inducted into the Disciples of Escoffier. That was super cool. He’s been on the show. He was the executive chef at Fork, and then the culinary director of High Street Hospitality. Do you happen to know Eli?

Mason Snyder: I do, actually. Of course, I worked at Fork, so I saw him quite often. He comes in there. He comes into a.kitchen where I also worked as a tournant for chef Eli Collins.

Just recently, I think it was just after you talked to him – it would have been February – I helped him out with a consultation for Honeygrow. He had all the bigwigs from Honeygrow over at his place, was putting together some salad recommendations. Of course, you know his situation. He’s in a wheelchair, so he needed hands in order to make that happen. It was awesome. It was a very cool experience. I never really got to talk to him before. He was a big reason why I looked at Fork and was thinking I was going to go there when I got back from Europe [and was] trying to find a place to work, because he had this terroir menu. I don’t know if you talked about that or not.

Kirk Bachmann: A little bit, yeah.

Mason Snyder: Very hyperlocal, focused program for Pennsylvania, and that’s always excited me because I’m originally from here even though I’ve been around the world since then. It was very cool to sit down and talk with him.

Analyzing and the Evolving Dish

Kirk Bachmann: That’s so great. I just love that story. He was phenomenal. Our chat got – it was a little of everything. It was real; it was emotional, as you can imagine. Just a true, genuine human being. So glad that you had that experience.

What was your experience like there working in Philadelphia, close to New York, not terribly far from Boston and other big cities? Was it everything you thought it would be, working in Philadelphia? Great reputation, right, the Fork had?

Mason Snyder: Yeah. Absolutely. Just last year, you saw Philadelphia made out really well in the James Beard Awards. At the time, I was basically filling in as a tournant for the whole High Street group. I was working at a.kitchen, working over at Fork, and working with Ellen Yin, who took Best Restaurant of the Year. She’s an amazing woman. If you ever get the chance to have her come on here, I would take it. She’s incredibly intelligent. When she walks into the room, she sees everything that needs to be corrected, fixed, whatever, making sure every guest is happy. But not just that: she takes care of her people, too, at a level that I’ve not really seen before.

Then you have chefs like Eli Collins at a.kitchen. He’s just like a chef’s chef. He thinks about food constantly. One of his philosophies I really love is this idea of evolving dishes. You might have one dish that he creates one year. It’s great. It’s on the menu; everybody loves it, but he’s not happy with it. The next year, he’s like, “You know what? What if we ferment carrots, and then we do it again.” It’s the same dish a little bit modified, and it gets a little bit better. And then the next year, he’s like, “Well, what if we marinate the tomatoes that are going to be in this thing?” The next thing you know, you’re ten years down the road. It’s the exact same dish, but the depth, the complexity, everything that’s there is just completely different.

Learning from chefs like that within that same group is amazing.

Kirk Bachmann: I love that. This isn’t on the script, but this idea of the evolving dish. This idea of the chef’s chef. You have a military background, so you understand mise en place. You understand preparation better than most human beings in the world. Then you go to culinary school, probably leverage some of those skills for your mise en place and such. I’m curious how your experience in culinary school, transitioning into the industry, how prepared were you for this concept of an evolving dish? Gosh! That’s really digging in. There’s so many places, I’ll go out and say, “Here’s the recipe. Don’t venture away from it. It is what it is.” But this idea of always improving something, always evolving something: I’d love to hear your journey about how you go to a place where that was a comfortable technique for you, to evolve a dish to the next level.

Mason Snyder: Honestly, I think when I was mentioning Chef Eli Collins, that’s really where I started picking that up. It’s kind of a recent development for me. I think that was a big growth moment when I started to realize where you needed to go with it. It tickled a very – what’s the right word? It tickled the right part of my brain. I’m an analyst from the military, so my brain loves to look at things and figure out the patterns and the way that things work together. Seeing that, it called out to me as something that is important, that I focus on how to analyze each ingredient, what we can do with it, how we can make it more complex.

Kirk Bachmann: It’s super cognitive. That’s where I’m going with it. The muscle memory is one thing. We have students that come in. We tend to demonstrate something for them, and they replicate it. But the world has changed a lot. A student’s voice is super, super important. Their interpretation of a dish is super, super important. The fact that you’re able to look at something, understand the profile of how those ingredients play with each other, and then cognitively – you’re an analyst – so your mind is probably constantly going. “What if…?”

Mason Snyder: Also to go to your point there: I think it’s a good thing. It wasn’t until I had the technique down to a point where it was second nature – I did the thing a thousand times – that I really could understand what I was doing when I was playing with flavors to make that thing happen. I was really appreciative of that training. I still go back to it even today. That was years ago.

Rodeo Animal Athletes

Kirk Bachmann: That’s super good advice.

I’ve got to spend a little bit of time – it’s kind of off topic – but you were a professional rodeo athlete for quite some time. I’m just fascinated by [it.] I’m here in Colorado. I spent a good part of my life on the Western Slope: Crested Butte, Gunnison, Buena Vista area. We have our Cattlemen’s Days. It’s the oldest rodeo in the state of Colorado. I can ride a horse, but I’ve never done anything that I’m not in control. I would never get on a wild beast. I would never do it. Can you share some memories or so memorable moments from your rodeo career that really had a significant impact on you, whether professionally? I know you can’t move your right arm right now because of an injury. Tell us about that. How did you get into that, and why is it so special to you?

Mason Snyder: When I was in the military, first I ended up in Texas where I ended up really getting involved with horses and stuff like that. I rode a little bit when I was out in California. Eventually, I went to the East Coast and got away from it for a little bit. I moved back out to Colorado, stationed at Buckley Air Force Base.

I go to this rodeo, and it’s an amateur rodeo. Most of the places you go around the rest of the U.S., you don’t really see those. You see professional rodeos. You’re like, “These guys just do it for a living. That’s just what they do. There’s no way I can do it.” Then you go to this amateur rodeo and you’re like, “Okay. Maybe I can.”

Kirk Bachmann: I can do this!

Mason Snyder: Turns out, the first time you do it, you can’t. It becomes very apparent. You probably get bucked off before you even leave the gate.

But I ended up going to this rodeo school and ended up choosing bareback, which is a bronc event where you hold onto basically what looks like a suitcase handle. I kind of fell in love with it, not so much because of the adrenaline or anything. I really actually fell in love with it because I love the animals. The animals would show up, and they’re basically athletes. They’re the same as if you were going to a baseball game, and you know it’s that guy or this guy. I knew the names of the horses. I was fan-boying a little bit over them. “Hey, you guys are awesome.”

But they all have their own personalities. Some are cocky when they show up in the gate. They look at you, and they’re letting you know that this is probably not going to go well.

Kirk Bachmann: “I’m in charge!”

Mason Snyder: You’ve got the new guy that’s a little bit immature, kind of acting up, not really knowing what to do quite yet. It’s fun.

You mentioned Gunnison. That actually was a big memory for me because that was my second professional rodeo. I actually went to Elizabeth first and somehow covered one in my first pro rodeo. It was only sixty-something points; it was not a good ride. I was hanging onto the side of it most of the ride. But at Gunnison, I get there; I’m a little bit cocky at this point. I just rode one. I look at this horse, and it’s literally shoulder-to-shoulder in the gate. I’m pretty sure it works out with Arnold Schwarzenegger on the weekend. I don’t know.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh Lord!

Mason Snyder: I’m like, “This is not going to go [well].” I run my hand into it. I could barely get it in. The next you know, they open the gate and I just shoot straight out of the top of it and pretty much land right back into the gate. Gunnison was not lucky for me at all.

Kirk Bachmann: I hope you had a good meal in Gunny, though. Cattlemen’s Days is a blast.

Mason Snyder: Absolutely. You’ve got to take advantage of those tents that are for all the contestants. You get fed there for free. Part of being a rodeo guy.

Rodeos and Food

Kirk Bachmann: What’s the future of rodeo? Is it still wildly popular? I see stuff on television on ESPN, and it’s really become theatrical. The lights go down and they get introduced and all that stuff. Is it still as popular as it has been over the years?

Mason Snyder: I think it is. Most of what you see on the television is PBR, which is bull riding specifically. They’ve fed into that more theatrical-type stuff that you’re talking about. It’s worked out for them. Now, the PRCA is multi-faceted. You’ve got breakaway, you’ve got roping, you’ve got bareback riding, saddle bronc, all those different events. I feel like there’s been a little bit of a drop in popularity with that one, but they’re starting to get back, learning a little bit from their PBR friends on what they can and can’t do. They’ve also opened up a few new events. They just opened up breakaway, which is mostly a female-dominated event in the rodeo, which is great. Before they were only doing barrels, so this really gets them more involved, which I love. I love the fact that we’re becoming a more diverse population there.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it. We have not talked about rodeo on the Ultimate Dish before, so this is a first. We came close several episodes ago. We had chef Brian Malarkey out of San Diego, but originally he’s from Eastern Oregon, and he grew up on a ranch. His family still has a ranch. In fact, he just opened up a restaurant in Bend, Oregon with his brother, who is a rodeo cowboy. I love it. Thanks for sharing that.

Mason Snyder: It’s kind of surprising, though, because of the fact that when you’re hanging out at a rodeo, you have all these people that are very involved in the agriculture community. You’re talking about ranchers like that, and you’re talking about farmers and stuff like that. I think a lot of the reason that I went back into culinary was because of rodeo. I was still in the military at the time when I got into it. I got into it very late; I was like 28 years old when I started riding. But while I’m there, I’m a farm kid by nature, too. I grew up in a Pennsylvania farm field. So I’m sitting there talking to them, and I get [to] really fall back in love with ingredients at that time because I’m talking with these people that are very passionate about what they do. They’re passionate about how they raise their cows. They’re passionate about how they’re growing their grains, or whatever it happens to be. It made it a very easy to transition to be like, “Hey, I want to go to culinary school again.”

From Military to Culinary

Kirk Bachmann: That’s super cool. We have a great relationship with a gentleman by the name of Farmer Lee Jones. He has a farm in Huron, Ohio called the Chef’s Garden. you’ve probably heard of it. Farmer’s a good friend of the school. In fact, we had a big webinar last night with a bunch of students and him. We do it every six weeks. I talked to Farmer this morning. Probably three out of every seven-to-ten days we jump on the phone. To your point, for him it’s all about food. It’s all about vegetables. It’s all about supplying the best product that he can for chefs around the country. But when he’s not having that narrative, he’s on the other side of the farm taking care of his Clydesdales. It’s his passion. It’s his love. Really cool story.

Let me jump a little bit if you’re comfortable with it, such a fascinating background. You’ve talked a little bit about cooking in Philly. We’ve talked a little bit about your rodeo career. For over a decade, you were an analyst for the United States Air Force. I know we can’t talk too much about it, but I’d love to know if joining the military was always a passion of yours, a dream of yours. Is it something that ran in your family? Then maybe segue into what you can talk about in terms of the unique role that you had in the military as an analyst because I’d love to just fold that into how your mind works as a chef works as well, having that analytical background.

Mason Snyder: I feel like it was always a done deal. When I was a kid, I was absolutely fascinated with jets. I had posters of them up everywhere. I couldn’t even help myself there. I loved the F-16; I thought it was a sleek-looking plane. Anyway, I ended up going into JROTC when I was in high school. At the time, I was actually working as a cook for a ski resort at the same time, so it will come tying back in a little bit later. It was a done deal.

My dad was a military contractor. He wasn’t actually in the military himself, but he worked for General Dynamics at the time. I think everybody thought I was going to go become an officer and go to college, but if I’m being completely honest, I was a little burnt out from school. I was actually a decent student. I just didn’t want to do it anymore. That’s what it came down to. Had scholarships for Texas A&M, and then a couple others to Norwich University, a couple military schools, specifically. But I didn’t want to do it. So I go see the recruiter, next thing you know, I’m in the Air Force. Lo and behold, the Air Force sends me to college.

They sent me to the city of Monterey for language, and I ended up learning Spanish, which is super helpful now. But at the time, I hated it. I wanted to be Arabic, or Pashto, or Farsi, or some language that I’ve never even heard before. Eventually, I ended up cross-training into what’s called a cryptologic fusion intelligence analyst where you basically take data from a bunch of different raw sources, and you’re going to figure out how to make a report that’s going to deny or degrade operations for your adversaries in some way. That’s the textbook answer while trying to be safe about it. Otherwise, I might have some people in black suits show up through the door here in a minute.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah. And then they’ll come looking for me as well.

Mason Snyder: Absolutely.

Kirk Bachmann: I don’t know him!

Mason Snyder: It was still a cool experience because I did get to go to the Middle East. I got deployed, and tried some things then. Having baklava for the first time when it’s not super dry was awesome. Or you have shawarma, or you go to an Egyptian restaurant, and you have the large maitre d yelling at you, “You need to come to my restaurant. It’s the best,” and him taking care of you. Trying different versions of coffee that you’ve never even had before. It was quite the experience, and it grew on me.

It was towards the end of my career, so I was starting to get burnt out from the military. With the rodeo thing going on, with seeing food from around the world, being this farm kid, I started looking at culinary schools. It was a very easy transition for me. You’ve also got the analytical side of it. I think I’m going to be able to satisfy my brain by going into this new career field.

If you think about cooking, it’s not just you’re going to cook some foods. You think about things like, Where do my ingredients come from? How can I make them better? What’s happening at the chemical level in food? What’s the cooking technique? What happens? How do we help the food chain? There are so many facets of this career field that you can go down. For me, it was very appealing because I didn’t think my brain would have any time to stop. I really enjoy that.

Riling Chef Michael

Kirk Bachmann: I’m getting so jazzed listening to you. I know that you worked in the purchasing area for us for a little while, and you’re absolutely right. There are so many other critical aspects of running a food service establishment. And purchasing, quite honestly, that area, food procurement, could be the most important.

Mason Snyder: I was a sous for Fork not too long ago. Now I’m the executive chef for this company. I would argue that purchasing experience that I had with Chef Michael was by far the most beneficial for my entire career because I was sitting there learning how to take care of these ingredients. What are the ingredients that I should order? Is it worthwhile buying the more expensive version versus the cheaper version of it for this specific technique, or whatever it happened to be. If you’ve had time to sit down with Chef Michael, you know he’s incredibly passionate about that, to the point where – I probably shouldn’t admit this on this podcast – but I used to purposely get him riled up.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh my! This is so great! Keep going!

Mason Snyder: One of my favorite ones was Marcus Lepke used to work for you guys.

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, yeah. I love Marcus.

Mason Snyder: He would be very adamant that he had the best ingredient of whatever it happened to be. I would go to Chef Michael and say, “Hey, Chef Lepke said he wanted this.” And then the next thing I know, I get a fifteen-twenty minute rant about why that’s just not the smart move. We’ll go with that.

At the same time, it was to my benefit, though, because I would actually do it on purpose. Because when he’s in his rant mode, and he’s very passionate about it, he’s actually giving you so much information about the why behind a lot of things. And I loved it. I probably shouldn’t admit it. He’ll probably send me a message later telling me that he’s mad at me.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, no! I’m going to send him. What you might not know, chef. I love Michael dearly. He finally retired after almost twenty years here. He retired about a month ago. I know it was really hard for him. You’re absolutely right. There was a method to his madness, right? We’ve spent the last two months trying to unravel everything that he has created for twenty years because only Michael could run it that way. But you’re absolutely right. I’ll be sure to tell him hello. For sure.

Mason Snyder: Absolutely. He was great.

Escoffier and Local Food

Kirk Bachmann: He will be so delighted. Marcus pops in and out. I see him frequently. He’s actually running the culinary department of a school not far from here. I’ll tell him hello as well.

Let’s talk about pivoting and enrolling in culinary school. Tell me a little bit more about that. How did you end up choosing Escoffier? You’ve talked a little bit about your classes, but there’s going to be a lot of students that listen to this and watch this. I’d love any sort of advice that you want to share with them as a grad, as an alum.

Mason Snyder: My choosing Escoffier was very intentional. I had my G.I. bill from the military, which is a great benefit. Anybody getting out of the military should definitely make sure they take advantage of that. They should.

While I’m looking at these schools, I, of course, look at all these big name schools. You look at the CIA. At the time, Cordon Bleu was still around. I’m looking at all these big name schools, and they just didn’t really jump out to me the same way that Escoffier did eventually. I actually hadn’t heard of Escoffier before any of this. I’m like, “What’s the top five culinary schools in the United States? What are the top ten culinary schools?” Escoffier, at the time, just kept popping up. “All right. What is it?”

I click in and look at it. Then I looked at [your] farm to table program. Again, I’m this kid from Pennsylvania who ran barefoot through cornfields, would sit in gardens, and eat tomatoes and strawberries right out of there. My mom’s a Master Gardener as well. It was very appealing to me to go to Escoffier because of that program that you offer. It’s fantastic because it’s more than just cooking. It’s more than just, “Here’s how you cook this food.” That’s great and all, but understanding where your food comes from and your role in that was already a philosophy that I had kind of built inside of me.

I was a big hunter and fisher. I don’t know if we’ll get into the outdoor things I used to do all the way since I would have been five. My dad trained me to be in the woods and do that. I would hunt and kill an animal where you take its life. It was very important to take care of that all the way through the process. You want to make sure the meat is cared for from the time you’re butchering it, to the time you’re there. The last thing you want to do is make sure that when you put it on a plate of food, it is given the most respect. You know what it went through to get to that point. It was a living being, animal, plant, whatever, until a certain point. You stopped it. It needs to have a purpose for you to do that, even if it’s just a plant. That philosophy, I think, comes through with this school without intentionally doing so.

Kirk Bachmann: Well said. Steven Nalls just walked by. You probably remember him. He owns the farm just about an hour north. I’ll make sure to say hello. In fact, he walked by and held up a dozen eggs from his chickens just to make sure I wanted them. He puts them outside my office there. I love that.

Yeah, we’re definitely going to come back a little bit to the hunting and your passion for the outdoors. I love that. I didn’t realize that you spent some time at McCrady’s with Sean Brock. I’m a big fan. It was probably about two years ago. We took a hundred people from the company to Nashville. Audrey was probably open for about six months or a year.

Mason Snyder: Very recent.

Persistence, Passion, and People

Kirk Bachmann: We bought out the restaurant just for Escoffier. He came in, and he cooked our meal. He couldn’t have been more gracious. It was really spectacular. I didn’t know that much about him then. Then I watched the Netflix show, and I learned a little bit about his personal life and addiction and all that kind of stuff, and loved him even more.

Tell me about McCrady’s and Charleston, which is one of the coolest food communities in the country.

Mason Snyder: Absolutely. McCrady’s. I actually got familiar with Sean Brock back when he was on PBS. There used to be a show called, “Mind of a Chef.” I think they’ve taken it off. I was infatuated with that show for lack of a better word. He was always on it. He was talking about seed-saving. I felt very connected to him, because he’s a nerd who comes from West Virginia where he was spending time in his grandmother’s garden. I’m wrapping up my time at Escoffier and trying to figure out where to do my externship. It was just something that I had to do.

I applied three times for the externship at McCrady’s. The first time, they just flat-out ignored me. “No, never mind.” The second time, they actually said, “Hey, you’re not quite what we’re looking for.” I think it’s because I applied for the line cook position. I was a little bit frustrated. Eventually, I sent them an actual cover letter with my resume to the actual culinary director. “Hey, I really want to work here. It looks like you guys are doing exactly what I want to be able to do.” They eventually said, “Yeah, we’ll give you a chance, kid.”

Kirk Bachmann: Persistence, right. Persistence.

Mason Snyder: I think anybody that is a student at Escoffier, if you want to go somewhere, you’ve got to show that you want to be there. Most chefs aren’t hiring. Even myself. I don’t hire somebody based on their skills as much as I do their passion and their intensity for cooking. I can teach somebody to cook. Sure, you’re in the same boat.

You can teach anybody to cook. It’s those other attributes that you can’t. Heart. The passion. The drive. The hard worker. Those are things you can’t really teach. You just have to have that. So I look for that. I think, if you’re going to go out and apply for these externships, you need to show that. You need to show that you did research on that company. that’s a big one that I look for. “Hey, I don’t want to just work here. I want to work for you guys because you’re doing this correctly.”

Kirk Bachmann: I’m curious, too. As you’ve had a number of different roles. Your experience in purchasing helped you. I’m curious how much roles like that, different things – tournant – different positions that you’ve had in the kitchen, how does that help you become a better food service operator overall? There’s food. There’s unreasonable hospitality. There’s sanitation. There’s feedback. There’s training your staff. How does it all come together, again, through the lens of a student?

Mason Snyder: I think a lot of students, especially the younger ones, are going to be very focused in on the cooking aspect of it. That’s great. You should. .You need to get that down. You need to master at that level of what culinary is first. But when you start moving into the sous chef role, or the executive chef role, your time in the kitchen starts to diminish greatly. It wears on you a little bit. I have days when I think, “Man. It’s easier for me to be in the kitchen,” and just do something, rather than deal with an HR thing, or deal with purchasing, or ordering, or talking to my boss about the future goals for the company. Having all these different aspects that you learn will help you when you get to that point. When it’s time to really start making decisions that affect the finances of the company, or that affect your people, which is far more important than the cooking itself.

I had a chef in Colorado when I was working on the Western Slope. I was at a country club called Catamount in Steamboat. Chef Ben. He said, very nonchalantly, so it was a weird scenario. He just had a piece of meat, and he lays it down on the cutting board. Out of the blue, he goes, “This is just a piece of dead meat. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not really that important. When it comes to people, you’re taking care of living beings. That’s the most important part of this job.” I don’t really know where he was at whenever he was saying that, but it actually stuck with me.

All right. Taking care of the cooks or the servers or anything else in the department and making sure that they’re happy and that they’re doing what they want to be doing is more important than this food that we’re cooking.

The Cowboy Chef

Kirk Bachmann: I love that. I love that. Cowboy Chef brand. Imagine how many people wish they had that brand. Why didn’t I think of that? I know I thought that the minute I saw it. Why didn’t I get that? Tell us about developing that. How did you coin the phrase – I can imagine that – but what inspired you, and where does it go from here?

Mason Snyder: So the Cowboy Chef was very easy for me to brand. At the time, I was rodeo-ing. I was going to culinary school. One of the things that happens when you rodeo is you spend a lot of time on the road. You’re going from one rodeo, and then you spend five hours going to the next rodeo. Then you jump back into the car after the event, and you do another five hours, and you might spend the night somewhere else.

You’re going to do this with probably a bunch of other guys that you become friends with. You’re not actually driving together – or you might be – but you all end up in the same place. Sometimes you end up cooking for them and hanging out, but we also don’t have a lot of money. You only get paid if you win; that’s the one thing about rodeo.

Kirk Bachmann: I was going to ask about that. That’s rough.

Mason Snyder: Unless you’re first, second, third, maybe fourth sometimes, you don’t get a paycheck. You actually paid money to get on that horse.

Kirk Bachmann: To get in.

Mason Snyder: A lot of guys team up because they don’t have a lot of money. They don’t have a lot. So we bring all our resources together, and I was one of the guys that would cook for that, so they started calling me the Cowboy Chef. It just kind of stuck.

When I was looking at opening up my own catering company – this was during Covid, so a lot of people were getting out of the restaurant industry at the time. I was looking to do private chef stuff – I really didn’t want to use my own name because I wanted the brand to speak for itself. I was thinking way down the road: “Hey, if I ever want to get out of this, it should be the company that gets the credit, not me, so that I could sell it.” Any of those types of things. Plus it took the ego out of cooking a little bit, because it wasn’t me that was getting the credit; it was the Cowboy Chef, some person that I don’t even know.

Chefs vs. Wild

Kirk Bachmann: Yeah, but smart branding. Then we’re going to speed up a little bit to “Chefs vs. Wild.” Let’s talk about your love for the outdoors here as well. Which I really appreciate. My thirteen-year-old boy is real close to being an Eagle Scout, so his learning about the outdoors and his passion for it have been a big part of our lives for the last decade or whatever.

Back in 2021 – we’re in the middle of the pandemic, or at least the front end of it – you’re featured on Hulu on “Chefs vs. Wild.” How does this opportunity drop into your lap? And how did you prepare for it? Maybe give those who haven’t watched it a little background on your episode in particular, which I watched before we chatted again today, by the way. Tell us a little bit about this. You’re a TV chef! It’s insane! It’s great.

Mason Snyder: Again, we’re going to go back to Catamount, actually. We got this opportunity, because it was during Covid. Yampatika was a program out there that teaches foraging. Absolutely recommend checking them out when you’re over there in Colorado. It’s an easy skip over the mountain. Anyway, they usually do a dinner with one of the restaurants in Steamboat, and because it was during covid, they decided, “We can’t do that. We’ve got to pivot.” They ended up doing this master class program, and they invited Catamount to come do it.

My chef at the time wanted nothing to do with that. He was like, “I don’t want to be on camera. That’s not my thing. I don’t know about eating weeds.” But me, I’m the outdoor guy. Before all of this, I spent a few months out of the year being a hunting and fishing guide for outfitters in the Colorado mountains. Very much into this. Go do this with Yampatika.

Yampatika is named for the Yampa Valley obviously, and the Yampa Valley is named for a vegetable that grows in the ground there called a yampah root. I ended up discovering – not really discovering – the flavor on this yampah root from the people that were teaching us how to forage. It’s amazing. It’s basically like a very sweet parsnip. I ended up making gnocchi out of it. Everybody thought that was one of the most amazing things. To me, it was that analytical side.

“Hey, it’s a starch. You can do starchy things with it.” Go down that route.

Kirk Bachmann: It just made sense. Yeah.

Mason Snyder: Exactly. It turned out, it was beautiful. It had a bunch of flowers in it. You had wild chive blossoms, some violets, stuff like that. The broth was made from stuff like nettles and mushrooms that we had foraged. It was a huge hit.

This show calls me up out of the blue and says, “Hey, we were looking at your Instagram. We would really like you to consider this opportunity.”

At the time, I was like, “You know what? Why not?”

We ended up planning for it. It takes about a year from the time you get the phone call until the time you actually go for the TV shows. Before this all hits, I just started my own company. I’m going off catering and doing all this stuff. Finally, we get to the point where the TV show happens.

I fly up to British Columbia, the Sunshine Coast. There’s no sunshine at the Sunshine Coast, by the way.

Kirk Bachmann: No, there’s not, but it is beautiful.

Mason Snyder: It is gorgeous. Absolutely.

So fly up there and end up getting on this show. It is in the peak of quarantine, so we had to quarantine. When I mean quarantine, I mean for real. We were only allowed out of our hotel rooms for an hour.

We go do the show, and the premise is basically you forage for ingredients with a survivalist expert with you. I got paired up with my survivalist. We have to decide with each ingredient, are we going to eat tonight, or are we going to save it for this final dinner. We are actually not being fed by anybody either.

One of the things that happened during it, and I’m sure you saw it. Because it’s not really on the air anymore, I’ll go ahead and talk about it. I ate an oyster. I actually didn’t get seafood poisoning, but there was a toxin that was like a hitchhiker on the oyster. I found all this out later. I’m trying to think of a nice word, but vomiting a chartreuse color out of my mouth.

They actually downplayed it a little bit because what actually happened there at time was all the medical team was completely surrounding me at the time. “You’re running a huge fever. You’re definitely poisoned. We think you should go to the ER.” But it’s during the peak of covid, so if I go to the hospital, I’m out. There’s no way I can come back to the show, and I don’t want that. It eventually gets to the point where the director – I can’t remember his name, but he was also the director for “Naked and Afraid” – he jumps off the boat. We’re sitting on the shore. I’m writhing in pain. He goes, “What do you want to do?”

I said, “Give me an anti-nausea and something for this pain. Let me ride it out for a couple of hours, and I promise if I don’t get better, I’ll leave the how.”

I ended up coming back to it. At the time, I was in a little tent with just a cot, no sleeping bag, no nothing. All but freezing. We’re doing this the last week of November, first week of December in British Columbia. The foraging is terrible because you’re at this time.

I knock on the tent of the medics. “Hey, I’m ready to go back to the show.” It goes fairly well. Obviously, I didn’t win. I lost to a Canadian chef. Sorry, America. Andrew Rochon is absolutely an amazing chef. He does the whole outdoor stuff as well. Now, he’s actually the head of a catering company out of Montreal as well. It’s kind of how we paralleled each other the whole time.

Kirk Bachmann: Do you guys stay in touch a little bit?

Mason Snyder: Every once in a while. We talk more about guiding and hunting and fishing than we do cooking.

Kirk Bachmann: I’m having oysters tonight…

Mason Snyder: If you watch the show, I actually got back onto the horse right there and ate oysters again because I didn’t want to serve the host a bad oyster. “All right, I’ve got to make sure these things are okay.”

Kirk Bachmann: Got to do it again. Thanks for sharing that.

What did you learn most about yourself? It’s a lot to overcome. Even when you’re talking about it – you’re sick. You know you’re sick. Then you go to your tent and it’s just a cot. You can’t even take a hot bath. You’ve got nothing. What did you learn about yourself in that 24 hours?

Mason Snyder: Honestly, when it came to that, I was already working as a hunting and fishing guide in the Colorado mountains. I’ve experienced stuff like that before, so I was kind of equipped to deal with it. Of course, I’ll mention I was only in the tent for those couple hours. Otherwise, we were in a shelter that was built, a little lean-to, a five-by-five.

Anyway, I think if you’re okay with it, I’ll speed it up a little bit from what I learned from this show. What I learned from the show: it was probably the most pivotal point in my entire culinary career because that’s when I decided what my food was going to be. At the end of that show, I knew exactly what it had to be and what I wanted to do with it, where I wanted to go with it, [and] the message that I wanted to send to everybody else when I cook. I’m really grateful for the opportunity to be on that show because of that. It set me in a different direction.

After that, they paid us extremely well, so I decided to reward myself and go to Europe. I was supposed to go there for three weeks and it turned into a year.

Getting Hired in Europe

Kirk Bachmann: I was just going to roll right into that. You did talk about that in our prep for this. I wasn’t expecting this and this is really fascinating. You have this great experience, and then you go over to Europe. Of course, you end up staying there for a year. Then you fell in love with Italian cooking as well, or you worked in an Italian restaurant in Prague, right?

Mason Snyder: Yes. I’m staying with my friend. Eventually, I was like, “It’s not so expensive here.” Once you’re over in Europe, it’s really not that bad. I ended up buying a Eurail ticket, and I extended my trip to three months. I got on the Eurail, and I would literally go to a different city every night. I would try the food of that town. I would literally go into a restaurant and go, “Hey, where do I go for [your local] food.” I’m not talking about just Germany, but what is Freiburg’s food? What is the food of the Alps? Something along those lines.

I was hopping around from city to city, and I got to the point where I was in Vienna, Austria, and I wanted to go all the way to Berlin. I, obviously, knew about Prague and heard about Prague. I guess I heard that it was kind of dirty, but at the same time, I didn’t want to spend eight hours on the train. Four hours sounds a lot nice.

So I do four hours, get off in Prague, and it’s not like any other city I had seen in Europe. Most of the cities I had spent time in were very Baroque, very one-dimensional as far as the architecture. Here I am in this medieval city, spires everywhere. You’re just expecting Dracula to pop out maybe. It was beautiful. It was probably one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe that I got to spend time in.

I ended up going to this restaurant. It was a Czech restaurant. I started talking to the waiter. We’re hitting it off. He’s like, “You’re a cook. You’re a chef.”

I was like, “Yeah.”

He’s like, “You looking for work?”

I’m like, “Not particularly, but I probably wouldn’t say no.”

He’s like, “I know somebody. Can I get your number?”

“Alright.” I give him my number. I honestly couldn’t even tell you the waiter’s name because it’s been so long and the quickness of it. That was the only interaction we really had.

I ended up going on to Berlin. I’m in Berlin, and my phone goes off. I get a WhatsApp message from a chef. His name is Leo. He’s a German. He’s from Berlin, and he’s like, “I heard you’re looking for work.”

“Again, not particularly, but if the opportunity arose.”

“How fast can you be back in Prague?” Okay. I was going to go to Hamburg and keep moving, but I don’t know, something in the back of my brain says, “Let’s go find out.”

So I ended up going back to Prague and spending two more days there. I basically did an interview in a very Czech fashion, in a bar. The reason they were actually looking for a cook is because he was leaving. There’s this new chef, Roman Kintler and he’s Slovak. Real quickly, I’ll do one thing. If you’re ever in Europe, you know what not to do. We’re doing the interview, and we all get beers, and we’re cheers-ing. I’m “Cheers,” Leo’s “Proust,” and Roman says, “Nostrovia.” They look each other in the eyes, and I actually looked down and away.

The German, he’s obviously dealt with Americans before, so he didn’t call me out on it. But the Slovak was like, “What are you doing, Man? Don’t do that. We look each other in the eyes. Why don’t you do that?”

I won’t say exactly what I said because it’s kind of inappropriate a little bit to some degree, but basically I said, “The only time Americans look people in the eyes is when we want to fight or do one other thing.” He just started laughing.

He said, “You know what? You have the right personality to be in a kitchen. Let’s give it a try.”

We all hit it off, and started working in Europe. It was so different. Europeans’ passion for food is not matched by the U.S. currently. That’s all there is to that. Working for Chef Roman, he was just on a different level, the way his brain worked, his passion, the intensity. He never left that restaurant. He was always in there, always thinking about it, always wanting to know what the next dish was going to be. We all worked for this Italian guy that had come over from Italy, and basically introduced authentic Italian food to the Czech people. He’s a big name over there. It was amazing.

And the people were awesome. They were very different, very straightforward people. It changed my food. My friends joke about it now whenever I – because I was still doing the outfitting thing – and I come back and I do the outfitting cooking. One of my buddies, Sean goes, “You’re on a different level. You changed since you were over in Europe.”

And it was completely due to people like Chef Roman who really showed me the ropes of what they were doing over there. It changed it. I’m very grateful for that.

Going Hunting

Kirk Bachmann: What’s your favorite experience in the outfitters world? Do you love a Copper River salmon trip? Do you like to be in Montana hunting elk or black bear in Canada? Where do you like to drop yourself in?

Mason Snyder: I worked for mostly Colorado elk hunters. That’s my passion. Colorado is mostly public land hunting, so it’s not easy. It’s very, very hard to hunt elk. Elk are probably arguably one of the hardest animals to go after. The challenge in that time in the woods, and you’re in some really rough country. You know Colorado mountains; they’re straight up. You’re basically living in this for five months trying to chase these animals with different hunters who maybe haven’t experienced this before. This is the first time that you’re with them, the first time that they’re going after elk. It may or may not be successful. It’s not like a private land hunt or going off to a ranch where you know you’re going to be successful. We were fifty-fifty whether we would get something or not.

Kirk Bachmann: It’s interesting being from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, they’re big hunters. My family has been in the hotel business – Gunnison, Crested Butte, Buena Vista area. For years, we’ve hosted hunters from late August through November depending on what season. Boy, I don’t know that ever saw – you have this type of personality that comes in from Texas.

They have a certain way that they like to hunt, but those folks from Pennsylvania! It’s interesting. It was like something passed down from generation to generation. “My grandfather came to this part of Colorado. My father came. Now I’m coming.” I always appreciated that. And they also loved the preparation of whatever. If we prepared some of their venison, whatever they wanted. You just triggered memories for me of way, way, way back then.

Have you been in the Tincup area, which is between Crested Butte and Gunnison. Tincup, Colorado.

Mason Snyder: Yeah. I spent a little bit of time there, but not so much. I was mostly in the Flat Tops and over in Routt National Forest. Up above Meeker. Basically, the whole northwest side of Colorado. But I did go down there a few times. In fact, I did a personal hunt right over there, a little bit further south down in Buena Vista. It was successful there, got a nice bull.

The Appeal of Catering

Kirk Bachmann: That’s great. My son-in-law, my oldest daughter’s husband, Sam, is a big and respectful hunter and fisherman. He does most of his hunting in Eastern Oregon, trickles down into Montana. He got a bull a few months ago just outside of Jackson. They trickle down into Wyoming.

Let’s talk about your current role as the executive chef at Feast Your Eyes Catering in Philadelphia. We just had another gentleman on, another chef, Brian Arruda just a few weeks ago who started his own private chef catering business in New York. Again, a little bit more serendipity.

How did you come across this opportunity? Specifically for our students, what excites you about the world of catering?

Mason Snyder: At the time, I actually had left Fork and was looking for some work to get by until the next gig. I was actually interviewing for Outstanding in the Field, if you’ve ever heard of them. I was also looking at another restaurant, Pub & Kitchen, who is very popular in Philadelphia. Both of them, we were in the interview process, but both of them had these huge breaks in between before I would actually start my role with them, and I was still debating which one I was going to go to. I was very honest with both of them. I think the relationship there is still good.

At the time, another chef advised me to go over with this catering company to help them out. It’s a very big company. We have about thirty cooks. We’re doing stuff day in and day out. We usually do about two events a day. On weekends, we’re usually doing four or five events each day. But I was working there just as a cook. I was getting ready to leave. I told the owner, “Hey, I’m only going to be able to help for a couple of weeks.” Right before I was about ready to leave, they actually separated from their executive chef for their own reasons.

I was getting ready to leave, and the owner goes, “Hey, what would it take for you to stay? I think we really need you here.”

“Alright. I’m only really looking for a sous chef position or something more along that line, or maybe taking the next step as an executive.”

He’s like, “Well, I’m interested. I’ve looked at your stuff. I would like to see what you have going for you.” We had the talk, and he’s actually from the same town I was, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. Back to that serendipity thing.

Kirk Bachmann: That helps.

Mason Snyder: It helps here. It’s funny. We don’t sound like we have an accent or anything, but we actually talk a little bit different. The syntax and our words come off differently to each other. We kind of know where everybody is from.

Kirk Bachmann: Oh, isn’t that interest? Yeah. And probably only you notice it.

Mason Snyder: Exactly. The fact that I’ll finish a lot of my sentences with the word “yet” is one of them.

Anyway…

Kirk Bachmann: Like you just did.

Mason Snyder: I can’t even help it. It comes out, and another Pennsylvanian will be able to point it out to me. “Oh, you’re from South Central.”

Kirk Bachmann: I love that. I love that.

Mason Snyder: Of course, the Philly people all say “wuh-ter.”

Kirk Bachmann: That’s true. That’s true.

Mason Snyder: Anyway, we were talking. He decided, “Hey, you’re a younger guy. You have a lot to prove, and I actually like that. Let’s give it a shot.” Here we are three months into it. I’m at the end of my probationary period. It was a huge hit.

What draws me to catering – because obviously, I opened my own catering company – is the fact that you’re a part of the big events in people’s lives. You’re a part of weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs. I came in during Passover for this company to help out. You get to see a lot of culture, a lot of changes, a lot of people’s big moments. Being a part of that is huge to me. I think that’s when food is very important. I think it’s kind of like if you look at the history of food, where it falls in with humans in general. We love to use food for celebration. Now you’re working with a group and that’s their primary focus.

Also, the appeal is I have this goal to change catering. It also appealed to me in that way because a lot of caterers use these national brands, reheat it, and serve it. There’s kind of that expectation. I would love for it to go in a different route. Like we talked about, I have this passion for farm-to-table stuff. I’m a farmer by trade. I love talking with them. Now, while I’m here, part of the reason I’m tied to it is because I’m back home, back with the farmers that I know.

I can get them pulled into this catering side and really change the industry by saying, “We’re not just going to get our food from Sysco. We’re going to get it from Lancaster Farm Fresh Co-op. We’re going to get it from Green Meadows, which has been a supplier for Philadelphia for a long time in farmed ingredients. We’re going to get from Philadelphia suppliers. We get our dim sum right here from Philadelphia, from Chinatown.” All these different local purveyors. We’re going to go back to High Street, which is the group that I was working for for our bread. At least, we’re in that talk right now. I’m very excited that we’re moving catering from it has to be just okay food to get by to something better, something more fresh, something more local. Keeping the money basically here in this industry.

What’s Next?

Kirk Bachmann: I love that. I love your comment, too, about being a part of people’s special moments and stuff. That’s really well said.

What’s next for Chef Mason? Let’s tell our students that are going to listen how to find you, how to follow you. We can give them the.cowboy.chef on Instagram or however you want people to follow you, but what’s next? What’s next?

Mason Snyder: What’s next is I’m very dedicated to settling into this role for Feast Your Eyes Catering. I love the ownership. He’s very ambitious. He says he wants to be the catering company that national companies all look at. I don’t know if it’s possible, but he’s mentioned that he wants to go after a James Beard Award as a caterer, which is not even a thing yet.

Kirk Bachmann: But it could be. It’s amazing!

Mason Snyder: But we’re going to try. If we shoot for the stars, land on the moon, so what? It’s a good thing. I respect him for that, and I think that relationship is going to build because of that. Because he wants to do great things for the culinary industry, he wants to do great things for Philadelphia, I’m on board. I’m going to do whatever I can to help him make that happen.

If you want to follow me specifically, like you said, @the.cowboy.chef on my Instagram is the best way to do that. Follow FeastYourEyesCatering.com. Our Instagram is the same thing, @FeastYourEyesCatering. Our Facebook is all on there. If you don’t mind, I’ll put a plug in there. I’m always looking to bring in cooks. If Escoffier grads want to come see me and work with me, I would love to have them. Send me an email.

Chef Mason Synder’s Ultimate Dish

Kirk Bachmann: I was going to ask that next. I’ll send you the email myself. We have plenty of grads in the eastern part of the United States, for sure.

I can’t let you go yet, because I can’t wait to hear the answer to this, because it’s going to have a little of everything we’ve talked about. The name of the podcast is The Ultimate Dish. I never let anyone go until they tell me what their ultimate dish is. This could be a memory. I’m sensing that you might go back to Prague, but you might not. It could be a specific dish. Chef, what is the ultimate dish?

Mason Snyder: I’m actually going to go back to the yampah gnocchi at Catamount. I don’t know where that came from. I love it. I think about it. It’s the dish for me that changed everything for me. It’s the one that put me on TV. It’s the one that got me in Europe. It’s the one that got all of this happening.

Kirk Bachmann: I love it.

Mason Snyder: Yampah gnocchi.

Kirk Bachmann: Walk us through that again. You foraged for some mushrooms that created the –

Mason Snyder: The broth.

Kirk Bachmann: The broth that it went in. That sparked a little movement on my spine. I love that. That was spectacular

Mason Snyder: It was so cool to be able to use these plants. I would love for somebody – this is probably a whole other topic, and I probably should avoid it – but I would love for somebody to start looking at some of these things that we forage as foragers and figure out how do we domesticate them and introduce them to the whole world as plants that are from North America. Of course, already, fifty percent of plants used in cooking come from the Americas, South or North America. Some odd number like that, but we have more to offer. I think that’s something that is going to distinguish our cuisine as different from everybody else’s around the world.

Kirk Bachmann: I think that was a great idea for another podcast. Stay tuned everyone. Stay tuned.

Chef, thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you. Congratulations on all the success. We wish you future success. Keep us posted, and I’ll reach out about trying to get you guys some help.

Mason Snyder: Appreciate it. Thank you, Chef. Thanks for having me. Loved it. Loved Escoffier. Can’t wait to come back and visit.

Kirk Bachmann: And thank you for listening to the Ultimate Dish podcast, brought to you by Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts. Visit escoffier.edu/podcast, where you’ll find any materials mentioned during the podcast, including notes, links and other resources. And if you can, please leave us a rating on Apple or Spotify, and subscribe to support our show. This helps us to reach more aspiring individuals ready to take the next step toward their dream careers. Thanks for listening.