The Omnivore's Delight - Kansas City Butcher Shops

Categorizing myself as an omnivore feels like an understatement. The list of foods I don't eat is so small that my friends can probably recite it from memory (in case you care: blue cheese, raw celery, black licorice). And while this blog leans heavily on the eating out part of my life, you should know that I also cook and eat in quite often as well.

I cook meat all year round but there's nothing quite as exciting as the summer grilling (and smoking) season. Most of us have been grilling at least since Memorial Day but I wonder how many have been taking advantage of of Kansas City's local butchers as the source for their meat. After all, your meal is only as good as the ingredients you start with.

For a city its size Kansas City is fortunate to have quite a few quality butcher shops available. Here are the ones I frequent and some of the reasons why:

New York Times Features Alex Pope of Local Pig

Hot on the heels of a front page article in the Wall Street Journal, local chef and butcher Alex Pope is featured in a New York Times piece on butchers who are eager to teach the public their craft.

Alex is the owner of Local Pig, an amazing little butcher shop in the East Bottoms. I'll provide more details on my experiences there in a future post.

Both recent articles reminded me that I was lucky enough to attend one of Alex's early classes where he taught the art of butchering a hog's head.

Photos from that class follow but some are not for the faint of heart...