DES MOINES, IA – La Quercia, Iowa’s award-winning cured meat company, will celebrate 10 years of producing Prosciutto Americano — the first cured meat to be released from their Norwalk aging rooms — with a day of festivities in Des Moines. On September 12st , La Quercia will host a Birthday Party at West End Architectural Salvage in Des Moines from 6-11pm. Local restaurants will serve bites made with La Quercia meats, and guests can feast on hand sliced Acorn Tamworth Prosciutto and Prosciutto Americano. Entertainment will include games with prizes, as well as local band Cousin Eddie. Tickets are on sale at https://tikly.co/events/582 now for $30.00: 100% of the proceeds of this event to be donated to United Way of Central Iowa’s Women’s Leadership Connection (WLC). View invite at http://laquercia.us/la_quercia_anniversary_10.html. The entire Eckhouse family will also be at the Des Moines Farmers market on the morning of September 12 selling their signature sandwiches (challah, sweet butter, prosciutto) to raise funds for WLC.
Cofounder Herb Eckhouse says: “For our family, making Prosciutto Americano was a huge risk and has been a huge personal effort. We are celebrating to show our appreciation to all those who have contributed to helping us make it to this milestone — eaters, customers, suppliers, colleagues”.
Since 2005, La Quercia has been making handcrafted prosciutto in Iowa using humanely raised pigs from family farms in the Midwest. There was no artisan American prosciutto on the market when they opened their plant. Eckhouse remembers: “We were worried. I told Kathy—‘there goes a thousand pounds of prosciutto. It just hit me that it's going to be sliced thin and served about an ounce at a time. A lot of people are going to have to like it’.” The company’s products, which now include several varieties of prosciutto, pancetta, coppa, guanciale, lardo and salami, have been embraced by taste-making chefs and retailers, and hailed by The New York Times, Food & Wine, Bon Appétit, Vogue and many other publications. They are now distributed throughout the US and Canada.
About La Quercia
Husband and wife Herb and Kathy Eckhouse began La Quercia with the goal of making uniquely delicious cured meats from humanely raised American pork. Several years living in Parma, Italy, sparked their appreciation of fine cured meats, but it was the bounty of the Midwest that inspired them to start curing meats in their Des Moines, Iowa, basement a decade ago. Although the company now operates in a much larger facility in nearby Norwalk, Iowa, they still salt, turn and trim each piece by hand in their aging rooms. Learn more at www.laquercia.us.
La Quercia’s products are now available directly to consumers via mail order and can be found at specialty retailers nationwide. The full lineup of products is here: http://laquercia.us/order_cured_la_quercia_meats.
Source: La Quercia
