Eating is a central part of the human experience much in the same way that swimming is a central part of being a fish. My wife and I recently visited relatives in the Kansas City area, so we decided to swim in the waters of the region’s food scene.

But first we had to take care of some important business by which I mean “go shopping.” Some mysterious law of physics forces our car to steer itself into the parking lot of any shopping center that we might happen to drive past. And since we’re in the parking lot, says my wife, we may as well go inside and see what the store has to offer.

We walked around in a humungous shopping supercenter that seemed to encompass an entire county. I find it easy to resist the siren call of consumer products. My wife, not so much.

After doing what we could to relieve the store of its burdensome supplies, we discovered that we were hungry. We both like barbecue; fortunately, we were in the Kansas City area where barbecue joints are as common as dandelions on springtime lawn.

We randomly drove around until we stumbled across a restaurant called Blind Box Barbecue. How the box lost its sight wasn’t explained. In any event, it looked like a promising place to find good barbecue. We weren’t disappointed.

I ordered their pulled pork and burnt ends. A brisket is a tough chunk of beef that used to be cast aside, and anything labeled as burnt used to be deemed unworthy of the table. But when you combine those two negatives, they can add up to a delectable positive.

And so it was at Blind Box Barbecue. Their burnt ends had just the right combination of caramelization and tenderness. I know from unhappy experiences that this balancing act is difficult to achieve.

The next day we motored to Louisburg, Kansas, located about an hour south of the Kansas City metropolis. We visited Louisburg Cider Mill where they make — surprise! — apple cider.

But that’s not all. They also have apple cider donuts, apple cider salsa, hard apple cider, and apple cider barbecue sauce. They even had some actual apples for sale.

Louisville Cider Mill features a sprawling, labyrinthine store where you can shop for anything associated with apples. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they even had T-shirts that had been made from recycled apple peels.

But alas! They didn’t have any dining facilities. We had purchased some donuts, but that didn’t seem like much of a meal. We craved something more substantial.

So, we drove randomly around Louisburg until we stumbled across Miss B’s Café, a modest eatery that has a relaxed, small-town vibe. The waitresses are the type of ladies who call you “hon” and refill your coffee cup early and often.

One look at the menu told us that we were in the right place. The special that day was their hand-breaded country fried steak. The menu also featured fried catfish with hushpuppies, and liver and onions. Being from a small town, I instantly felt right at home.

We ordered our food — my wife got the special and I went with the blackened catfish — and looked around while we waited. On the wall next to us was a painting of a Wilford Brimley lookalike plowing with a vintage John Deere tractor. Sadly, I’m old enough to be able to correctly deconstruct the painting.

“The tractor has yellow paint on the side of its hood, so it’s a 20 or a 30 series Johnny Popper,” I said to my wife. “The plow is an F145 semi-mounted model that has three bottoms. This means that the tractor is either a 620 or a 630.”

I was patting myself on the back for this bit of forensic analysis when our food arrived. The country fried steak nearly covered the entirety of my wife’s plate, and my catfish was tasty and tender. It was everything one could hope for in a small-town restaurant experience.

But Fate wasn’t done with us. As we finished eating, an elderly guy who had been sitting across the room from us came over.

“I know the artist who painted that picture and I know the man on the tractor,” he said. “I have a tractor just like it that my dad bought new in 1957. I put in a lot of hours on the seat of that tractor.”

We chatted pleasantly about vintage farm equipment for several minutes. After the elderly guy and his wife left, our waitress approached and asked, “Would you like dessert?”

“I think I just had some,” I replied with a contented grin.

— Jerry’s book, “Dear County Agent Guy” can be found at www.workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.