Some Prosciutto Fans Turn To Iowa

NORWALK, Iowa — The decision came down to this: Would people buy prosciutto from a guy named Herb from Iowa?

“It was a crazy idea, but we didn’t think it was a stupid idea,” says Herb Eckhouse, the Herb from Iowa who spent some anxious years weighing that question. Racks of raw pork rolling into the refrigerated chambers around him suggest the answer.

It is Wednesday, salting day, so Mr. Eckhouse is preoccupied with the central task of making his prosciutto: coating the carefully trimmed hind leg of a pig with sea salt. “This is kind of the key time, so we want to make sure it’s done right,” he says

Mr. Eckhouse and his wife, Kathy, began producing La Quercia Prosciutto Americano eight years ago in a plant they built here, just south of Des Moines. The meat has drawn enthusiastic reviews and is on the menus of upscale restaurants and in shops in New York, Chicago and the Bay Area. Some Whole Foods Markets and Costco stores stock it.

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