St. Paul wrestles with duck confit

ST. PAUL, Minn., May 3 (UPI) -- A chef who brought fine food to Minnesota's capital is embroiled in a dispute with St. Paul health officials over duck confit.

Lenny Russo of the Heartland Restaurant in St. Paul said he has been making duck confit for 25 years, following the traditional method. That involves curing duck meat with salt, cooking it slowly in rendered fat and then storing it in the fat for as long as six months.

But that has put him at odds with a city ordinance that requires prepared foods to be trashed after two weeks.

"What's really important about the whole process of confit is, it's a method of preservation. It allows us to use local products in the dead of winter," Russo told the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. "It's important for me to be able to preserve as many things as I can for over the winter."

Bill Gunther, the city's environmental health manager, said he does not worry about highly trained chefs like Russo. But he is afraid that if St. Paul allows restaurants to keep confit and similar foods for long periods, cooks who have not had years of European training could put the public at risk.

The city and Russo are working on a compromise.