Cheese and Charcuterie · Norwalk, Iowa
La Quercia
Italian-style cured meats from Iowa pork, made with a focus on animal welfare.
- Founded by
- Herb Eckhouse, Kathy Eckhouse
- Based in
- Norwalk, Iowa
Their story
La Quercia is the work of Herb and Kathy Eckhouse, who spent three and a half years living in Parma, Italy, and came home to Iowa with a love of prosciutto and salumi.
They started curing meat at home before building a prosciutto plant in Norwalk, just outside Des Moines, in 2004. The name means "the oak" in Italian. Their goal was simple: make something delicious from the pigs Iowa is known for.
How it's made
La Quercia buys pork from animals raised without antibiotics and outside confinement operations, with outdoor access and deep bedding. That meat becomes prosciutto, speck, pancetta, coppa, lomo, guanciale and lardo, cured slowly in Norwalk.
From the beginning we've been really committed to using clean meat.
Why we carry them
We love La Quercia for proof that world-class prosciutto can come from the Midwest, it is silky and sweet on any board.
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