Polenta
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Polenta is a cornmeal mush popular in Italian, Argentinean, Savoy, Swiss, Austrian, Croatian, Slovenian, Romanian, and Corsican cuisine. It is a traditional staple food throughout much of northern Italy.
Formerly a peasant food, polenta has recently become quite upscale, with polenta dishes in restaurants and prepared polenta found in supermarkets commanding high prices. Many new recipes have given new life to an item which is, in essence, a fairly bland and common food, invigorating it with various cheeses or tomato sauces.
Polenta is made with either coarsely, medium, or finely ground dried yellow or white cornmeal (ground maize), depending on the region and the texture desired.[1] It is similar to corn grits, with the difference that grits are made from coarsely ground corn, hull and all (most popularly from corn which has been processed into hominy, making it grittier yet). There are many different types of polenta, such as basic or soft polenta.
Regional varieties:
- in Romania, polenta is known as mămăligă and, traditionally, it is cooked in a cast iron pot called ceaun. Traditional Romanian mămăligă is supposed to be somewhat thicker than the regular Italian polenta.
- in Croatia, it is common on the Adriatic coast, where it is known as palenta or pura
- the Corsican variety is called pulenta, and it is made with sweet chestnut flour rather than cornmeal.
Polenta is often cooked in a huge copper pot called a paiolo in Italian. In northern Italy there are many different ways to cook polenta. The most famous polenta dishes are polenta uncia, polenta concia, polenta e gorgonzola, and missultin e polenta. All are cooked with various cheeses and butter, except the last one, which is cooked with fish from Lake Como. It can also be cooked with porcini mushrooms, rapini, or other vegetables or meats.
Interesting facts
- "Polentone" ("pulentun" in dialect, meaning roughly "big polenta") is a derogatory term sometimes used by Southern Italians to refer to Northern Italians.
- In South Africa, cornmeal mush is a staple food called mealie pap; in Zimbabwe it is called sadza.
- Cornmeal mush is called ugali in Swahili, and is a much appreciated food in East Africa.
