I’ve been reading a lot about hog farming. A strange hobby, perhaps, for someone coming from suburbia. Clear days playing baseball in my childhood driveway revealed the Sear’s Tower; standing tall above the blurry, gray tops of less noteworthy buildings that composed the Chicago skyline half an hour east. The first of my many college attempts took place in 1988 in Iowa City. During the school year I donned a daily hairnet and worked in the dormitory cafeteria. The following summer, I spent my days as a minimum wage landscaper and gravedigger at what the locals called the Black Angel cemetery. At night I washed dishes and cooked at a restaurant where servers tipped us out with so much beer, finishing school was never really a risk. Twenty years later, most of it spent working in restaurants, I embarked on a nearly 1000 mile, 39-hour excursion to visit three artisanal food producers scattered between the rolling rows of corn and swollen tributaries of the Hawkeye state.
Driving through Iowa on the state and county highways feels like that moment that surely sucks many people in too far, when a drink first tingles your brain. One sip less, you feel nothing. One sip more, you get stupid. The curves and hills, the shimmering fields, it’s a lot like a song, there’s a rhythm to it all. Perfectly spaced tight turns might be the big refrain or chorus, straightaways a good back beat or verse. Driving into town might launch an enticing intro, or, as the speed limit climbs and the town disappears, a properly faded analog outro that leaves you looking forward to the start of the next track.
Granted, after 400 miles in the car, I’m was ready for a different fucking album already. I get tired of sand at the beach, too. So while I was digging part of this road trip for sure, I may not be the most reliable travel writer. Skiing is too cold and dangerous, sailing too windy, cruiseships? Well, cruiseships. The only one I have ever been aboard was an all expenses paid, open bar Royal Caribbean kind of deal that was sent a bit off course, through nauseating seas as Hurricane Katrina passed the Bahamas on it’s way to screw the States right in the gulf. So while I can’t recall too much, I do fondly recall the way my wife looked. I also remember people calling me Captain Morgan and participating a bit too much in karaoke. Italy was a great trip too, but loud American tourists in socks and sandals with tucked in polos wear on me pretty quickly around all those old buildings. I can’t necessarily tell you why.
Back to the heartland as they say. Taking the Dyersville exit, we headed north on Highway 136 past the chain stores and fast food and into this classic, midwestern, time-warp town. Several of the cars in front of us turned off for the Field of Dreams movie set. I recall seeing an Entertainment Tonight where Kevin Costner was recently dating or married to someone younger than one of his daughters. Thanksgiving would be totally fucked up, wouldn’t it? We continued out past the implement shops. As we debated who the female lead was (Amy Madigan) I saw the mailbox and hit the brakes. At the end of a long gravel drive tucked between two corn fields (hardly a surprise, really) sits the place where some of the nations most acclaimed chefs get their pork; Becker Lane Organic Farm.
Across the drive from the new steel barn where we parked were acres of metal farrowing huts, methodically placed in a spacious grid, shining the way metal things do in the 90-degree sun. Our preconceived image of pig farmers required a quick adjustment as we were greeted by organic pig farmer, Jude Becker, who looked like he’d just returned home for the summer after a week of spring term finals. Distribution headaches, feed sourcing issues related to this summer’s torrential flooding and a driver’s truck repossession situation kept his cell phone ringing as we toured the farm. I don’t know that my traveling companions had the exact same impression of the farm as I did, but the words I jotted down when we got back to the hotel after two hours with the pigs were “Calm, quiet, clean, serene, beautiful. Happy pigs.” I tried in vain to put something a little more substantial down on paper about the farm, something agricultural at least, after all, I had been reading a lot about pigs. But all I kept coming back to was the pleasantness of the place.
Later, we joined Jude and his friend Maria, a Swedish agricultural grad student here for the summer, for dinner at a new restaurant in Galena, Illinois. We ordered some wine and talked pigs, restaurants, food and life. The restaurant was in the boutique row of restored buildings that comprise Main Street in Galena. The young server was anxious, scripted and eager as she stammered through the specials and the basic mission of the restaurant; a focus on local and regional artisanal producers. When Jude asked about the pork she said, “It’s from a farm in Iowa somewhere, I can’t tell you which one exactly, but a farm, it’s farm raised, it’s terrific.” She pointed out the large black and white photos along the brick walls that each featured a local farmer, like hey, look, farmers! The only one smiling was, of course, the wine merchant. The rest of the photos of the farmers in front of their weathered homesteads with a hunk of cheese or a calf or a chicken nearby looked a little too stoic, nearly sad, even a bit pissed. Sort of like the Joshua Tree album cover if there had been a goat in the arms of Adam Clayton. I mentioned the sad looks to Jude and he said in a completely solemn voice and with a completely flat look on his face, “this has been my entire personal life for ten years, raising pigs.” Not a lot of friends, no real time for hobbies. Maybe the pictures are right on the money.
The next morning I returned to the farm early to take a few more pictures and check things out. It was still cool then, the air was clean and the pigs were running around playing and eating (they eat just like you’d think pigs would eat) before the heat of the day really set in. I spent about an hour walking around in the good light and long shadows then it was time to gather the entourage and head out on a roll of the dice stop at the Maytag Dairy Farm in Newton.
I’d called Maytag about setting up a special “chef” tour the previous week; they said they’d be happy to give us the standard tour with the video, blah, blah, blah and a few samples. As a result, this was not too high on our priority list. Usually I get a pretty good response and some sort of hook up-an extra appetizer, a kitchen tour, a little more attention in general when traveling with a chef. This reaction, though, was a lot like the response I get when I tell people that I went to the same high school as David Hasselhoff. A kind of curious stare, like, why the hell would you tell me that? But, as the day unfolded, we did have the time and we were in the neighborhood. We pulled into the early 70’s single story office building ready for a 15-minute gift shop experience as I struggled to find the front door in a sort of Spinal Tap scenario. Just as I expected, the tour began with the retro video in a small cubicle that contained some nice photos, a giant plastic cow with a silly hat and our hosts monotone verbal history of the company before the lights were dimmed. At that point I sort of expected American Girl by Petty to play and get thrown into the back of a conversion van ala Demme’s classic. The video goes through the whole deal with the same throaty announcer from high school health class videos. Then the video is done and we sit there, and sit there. Perhaps a laser show or something has malfunctioned. I headed out to the office area and look around-our tour guide is nowhere to be found, just a lot of women typing and talking on the phone. Another woman in a white lab coat asks what I’m doing there-I said, “I’m on the tour but we’re just sort of stranded.” Our host had apparently gone to lunch, leaving us hanging and this nice lady, I’m assuming the head of the wedge foil wrapping division, agrees to show us around a bit. We look at the shipping department through the glass, we look at the slicing department through the glass. Things are different here since 9-11, we’re told, and there isn’t any way to get too close to the cheese anymore.
So we somewhat inappropriately joked about the intense security in this rural area outside a town of some 15,000, some 1,080 miles to NYC. We joke about abusive quotas for the wrapping ladies, all of whom appear to be nice grandmas with zero to few skeletons in their closets. We basically write this tour off, everyone is just so nice, almost in that sort of way that leads you to believe you’ll be strapped to a bed and have your ankles smashed with a hammer, and head for the samples. After commiting to purchase a few t-shirts and some cheese, our host says she called down to the actual plant and arranged for us to see the operation up close. This is why we came.
Hairnet on, we headed into the remarkably tiny space where more than one million pounds of international award winning, raw milk, blue cheese is produced each year and seven or eight workers, some of whom look like the tattooed mechanics from Orange County Choppers, except these guys have beard nets (hairnets for beards). They demonstrated the hooping of the curd, the lab work, the whole pungent deal. I snapped away until my memory card was about full. After about 30 minutes, we thanked the crew and were escorted out by our host. “So, what’s your actual job here? You took a lot of time to show us around. Are you going to get in trouble? Did any of the workers get pissed you took us down there” I asked while we walked towards the cars. She replied, “I’m the president.” Without thinking I blurted out, “Oh, so you could just fire their asses if they said anything!” She just smiled. Myrna Ver Ploeg, Maytag Dairy Farm’s president, just spent 90 minutes walking us around and showing us the hundred year old cheesemaking process, the off-limit production barn, the Maytag family estate and was kind and funny in the process. We had expected this to be a bore, a waste of time between Dyersville and Norwalk and it was an exceptional treat. Staying longer than we’d planned, we had just 40 minutes to drive the hour to LaQuercia.
80 miles an hour only gets you lost faster if you don’t really know where you’re going. Despite directions on the phone from Herb Eckhouse, LaQuercia’s main man, we arrive late. The offices are new and clean and a dog meanders about as we were introduced to Herb and his wife Kathy. The modern business park style warehouse appeared a bit run of the mill until we got past the offices. Behind the doors and into the production areas it is a lab-like space straight out of a James Bond movie. Well, actually like a James Bond movie if it had involved the curing of pork products, but high tech nonetheless. This stop, for me, is a really big deal. I’d read about LaQuercia for several years and always wanted to visit.
Just to give you an idea of my enthusiam, here is text from an actual email I sent to a LaQuercia staff member in the process of setting up the tour.
“Nick, I called to talk to you…but Herb answered. Honestly, it was a bit like calling the Rolling Stones record company and having Mick Jagger or Keith Richards answer the phone. I felt a little like the Chris Farley character interviewing Paul McCartney on SNL.”
Herb Eckhouse retired from Pioneer after it was bought out by DuPont. He is clearly a businessman and an artisan, with great strengths in both arenas. While he was with Pioneer he worked in Parma, Italy for several years, enjoying the local hams as one does when in Parma. Prosciutto was a calculated business decision for him, this was not a lifelong passion and dream necessarily, but thank God he went this route. He basically went from making a few hams in his house to launching a multi-million dollar enterprise within a few years.
The facility was sparkling, brand new and full of state-of-the-art Italian equipment. He walked us through the entire process, speaking as a scientist, businessman and artisan all the while. Pallets of packaged prosciutto, coppa, guanciale, pancetta and speck filled the shipping room, waiting on tomorrows trucks. Thousands of perfect hams hung on custom made rolling racks in every climate controlled room. Each room simulates a different season, modernizing the age old craft, eliminating nearly every opportunity for error, except that of humans. Herb gladly takes credit for those mistakes. “It’s always a work in progress.” Demand exceeds supply, so much so that a huge addition is already in the works.
We wrapped up the two hour tour with the purchase of $600 worth of pork products and were treated to some of Kathy’s organic birthday prosciutto. Herb carefully sliced it by hand, we devoured the pieces like dogs. After two or three rounds we apologized for our rudeness. Herb replied, “No, no. The first taste is to be polite, after that it means you like it. Eat more.” We did until it became kind of awkward, Herb and Kathy were just sort of looking at us, so we said thanks, grabbed our boxes and headed out, hungry for dinner.
The Hitchin’ Post Inn is just outside of Winterset, Iowa, near the famed Bridges of Madison County. We were clearly not locals and as we entered the bar there was that heads turning thing and a speedy silence as the conversations fell beneath the volume of the local news. Patty melts, big sodas, fries five ways-they had it all. Joining some of the locals outside, I bummed a light off a young pregnant lady who was smoking with her Mom. As I walked around a bit all I saw was local plates on the trucks in the parking lot. Not a Prius, Subaru or VW in sight. We had fine service and great bar food and didn’t get hurt. The Hitchin’ Post was a great way to leave the state. We headed south on 35 with full bellies, a station wagon full of pork and hairnets in our pockets.
