Carole Peck can’t forget the horseradish incident: 15 quarts of locally grown and preserved horseradish in the walk-in cooler of her well-known Woodbury restaurant, Good News Cafe, confiscated by the local health inspector.
“They threw them all out on me,” Ms. Peck said, adding that there was so much acid in horseradish, it could survive just about anything.
Except Connecticut’s regulations on what restaurants can serve.
The horseradish, it turned out, had not been processed in a commercial kitchen — one among many don’ts that face restaurants specializing in locally grown, raised, caught, picked and otherwise produced foods.
Ms. Peck, arguably the dean of Connecticut’s farm-to-table cuisine, has been in the restaurant business for more than 40 years. Long before local produce was stylish, she was serving seasonal creations from fruits and vegetables grown in the orchards and on the farms that dot the Litchfield Hills. These days, customers also find local honey, syrup, eggs and milk at her cafe. But, she said, it sometimes seems that the Connecticut Department of Public Health, which oversees food protection and designates approved and unapproved food sources for restaurants, would rather see her cooking processed food than local farm stuff.
What is best for an individual chef, however, may not always be best across the board. William Gerrish, a spokesman for the Public Health Department, said the state regulations, based on widely recognized national standards, were aimed at food-borne disease, which he said the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates sickens roughly one in six Americans, or 48 million people, each year, leading to 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths.
Among the department’s regulations for all restaurants: Slaughtering and processing of meat must be done at sites inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture; fish must be caught by commercial fishermen; shellfish must be from state-approved beds; game must be farm-raised and slaughtered at federal Agriculture Department-approved sites; eggs must be inspected by the federal agency or the state; mushrooms must be commercially raised, not foraged; and no raw milk is allowed, though raw milk cheese is permitted. Restaurants’ use of fruits and vegetables is not regulated, except when it comes to canning.
To comply, some restaurants that emphasize local products also use a broad definition of “local,” extending to Maine and Maryland. While Ms. Peck’s beef and pork creations start with Connecticut-raised animals, the chickens she roasts are most likely from Pennsylvania, the ducks in her confit from New York and the rabbits in her occasional dish from New Jersey. And do not even think local for the antelope meatballs (Texas) and the venison (New Zealand).
“To further complicate things,” said Wayne Kasacek, assistant director of the Connecticut Agriculture Department’s Bureau of Regulation and Inspection, “the towns and the health districts can interpret these rules the way they see fit, though they generally follow the State Department of Public Health.”
Joel Viehland, the chef at Community Table in Washington, said inspectors did not let him can seasonal products like peaches for use in the winter, though he could preserve acidified products like kimchi and other pickled vegetables, as well as jams and jellies. “I think there’s a trust factor that has to happen here,” Mr. Viehland said. “There’s some of us who are educated and know what we’re doing.”
Mr. Viehland learned the local-food ropes at the famed Danish restaurant Noma, where the standard is to grow, forage or purchase food that is as nearby as possible. While mainstays like eggs, fish, poultry and beef are often delivered daily, how they are prepared and with what change daily.
Stonington scallops, often on the Community Table menu, illustrate the wide area covered by the local label. Seafood is located by where it comes into port — not where it is caught, which can be in another state’s waters or in federal waters. Scallops can be harvested only from federal waters, though they are named for where they reach land, like Stonington. Farmed shellfish, like clams and oysters, can come directly from Long Island Sound.
But the nightmare singled out by every chef — finding local chicken — is now easing thanks to a new state inspection system and the recent opening of a federal Agriculture Department-inspected slaughterhouse. Restaurants may serve chicken only if it has been inspected by the federal agency. But with no approved processor in Connecticut, sending chicken out of state for slaughtering and then bringing it back was expensive and, many felt, detrimental to the quality of the meat.
Poultry farmers in the state were allowed under federal rules to slaughter a limited number of birds themselves without inspection, but only for individuals to whom they essentially sold the birds live. Processing was done as a courtesy.
Last year, after years of complaining by chefs specializing in local food and by small poultry producers, the General Assembly passed legislation to establish a state poultry inspection system. Farms approved under it will be allowed to sell directly to restaurants, hotels and consumers, but not wholesale or to schools or hospitals.
Rick Hermonot, owner of Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm in Sterling, which raised about 2,000 turkeys and 1,200 chickens last year, was first in line to seek approval. He constantly hears from restaurants wanting to buy from him, but legally, he has to turn them down, he said. “Over the years it almost gets discouraging to receive the phone calls,” said Mr. Hermonot, who has a mailing list of restaurants that serve local food ready to go as soon as final approval comes. He figures the added market will allow him to double chicken production and increase his turkeys by 20 percent.
At MarWin Farm in New Hartford, which is also awaiting approval, Kenny Dahill, the owner, said he had three restaurants lined up.
The establishment of the state inspection system coincided with federal approval of Tarzia Meat Packing’s operation in New Milford in February. Jason Tarzia, the owner, began processing chicken from GourmAvian Farms in Bolton in April. “I have been inundated with farmers,” Mr. Tarzia said of the phone calls he had received.
The first customer for GourmAvian’s Tarzia-processed chicken was Jonathan Rapp, owner and chef of River Tavern in Chester, whose menu changes daily based on what is locally available. Most days Mr. Rapp can get local fish and beef. So he said he was thrilled to have a steady source of local chicken, though he noted the expense: Tarzia’s processing fee of $5 per bird, plus the cost of the bird and of picking it up on the other side of the state.
“I understand the need for regulations,” said Mr. Rapp, who made clear his unhappiness with health department prohibitions on foraged mushrooms and noncommercial fish. “On the other hand, their approach is essentially that food is dangerous. For me, the really dangerous food is the stuff that’s mass produced.”
Other chefs also say they are less than thrilled with state regulations, and at some restaurants, menus note that the food comes from outside Connecticut. Still River Café in Eastford, for example, uses New England beef, Maine lobsters and Georges Bank scallops. “We get calls on a monthly basis from people who have mushrooms and we won’t touch them,” said Kara Brooks, who owns the cafe with her husband, Robert. The Brookses grow about 90 percent of their summer produce at the restaurant. Other than that, Ms. Brooks said, “Connecticut has been a challenge.”
Scott Miller, executive chef at Max’s Oyster Bar in West Hartford, said he turned down offers of local fish a couple of times a week. Instead, he said, the fish and shellfish, especially the raw bar offerings, come from reliable vendors, and he often lists the farms that provide produce on the menu. He said he could not risk breaking the regulations.
“We’re under the microscope, and in a way, we asked for it,” he said. “With more and more products available, we bring the microscope down on us more than we wanted to.”