Once a clothing boutique, now a bank, there’s a building in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood that used to house my family’s sausage store. My grandfather and his brother still made their own sausage long after the place closed. It was open for about 40 or 50 years, now part of the city’s forgotten past. Encased meat still exists of course, but you need a bunch of hipsters and a micro-brewery attached to make it worthwhile. Speaking of butchers, Germany has its own museum dedicated to these slaughterers of animals and sellers of meat. The Germans take this art very seriously, and the German Butcher Museum (located about hundred miles from Zurich, Switzerland) has everything carnivores would ever want to know about animal flesh.
The museum showcases the tools and methods of butchery, with life-size shops from the 1400s to the 1900s to show its history. There is also special attention devoted to the importance of guilds in this ancient trade with a sample guild hall and antiquated documents. Guilds were like unions of yesteryear but emphasized craft skills and aided professional development. And of course visitors can also admire various artwork and figurines (like pigs butchering themselves). But the best part? The museum hosts Schlachtfest (Slaughter Party) every year. Let’s go!
