It's golden, grainy, sticky and tastes quite bland if served alone. But polenta's versatility has made it a culinary star, with Italy's famous cooked cornmeal dish pairing perfectly with a multitude of flavors.
Toppings can include anything from venison, fish, rabbit, wild boar and braised veal to mushrooms, tomato sauce and melted cheese. It can also be used in desserts, including cookies, pies and pancakes – some even eat it with Nutella. And we can't forget the textures, it comes in different formats and can be extremely creamy.
Polenta is eaten throughout Italy, but there are three main regions in the north of the country where it is particularly popular – Veneto, Lombardy and Piedmont.
Giovanna Gilli, 85, has fond memories of her Piedmontese grandmother slowly stirring cornmeal porridge inside a huge copper cauldron on the fireplace, then serving it on a wooden table, pouring tomato sauce, sausages and onions on top before everyone else take your share.
“We would take a spoonful and put it on our plates. It was delicious, it melted in your mouth”, she remembers. “The next day, the crispy, dry polenta that was left over was cut into sticks for us children to dip into milk or sprinkle with sugar for breakfast.”
Polenta's way
Today, polenta is believed to be Italy's most popular staple food, after pasta and pizza. At its core, it remains a humble community dish, but during the Second World War years it was consumed mainly out of necessity.
At the end of a hard day's work, some family members gathered around the table and shared polenta. Using their hands as spoons, they rubbed each bite into a dried herring hanging by a string from the kitchen ceiling to add flavor to the plain polenta and at the same time preserve the fish.
Although culinary historians note that ancient Romans often ate a softer type of polenta, made with cooked ground spelled, the version people know and love today has its roots in the Atlantic Ocean in the Americas. It all started when Christopher Columbus brought with him to the Old Continent an “exotic” crop of corn, a product he was unfamiliar with until his voyage in 1492.
According to chef and food historian Amedeo Sandri, corn was later imported to Italy by missionaries returning from the Americas to the Friuli region. Large-scale cultivation spread in the 1600s to Veneto and Lombardy, replacing traditional crops and triggering an agrarian revolution. Today, there are about a dozen types of Italian corn grown in the country.
“Farmers realized that corn had higher yields and a shorter cultivation cycle compared to millet, rye and wheat, and that it provided enough strength to work on the farm,” says Sandri.
“But there were some serious side effects to this polenta-based diet.”
It is said that Europeans became so addicted to cooked cornmeal that they developed a peculiar disease called pellagra, caused by a lack of niacin – also known as vitamin B3. Many reportedly suffered from dementia, diarrhea and skin rashes as a result of the illness.
However, advances in nutritional research in the early to mid-20th century and more diverse diets changed all that, and in the years that followed, Italians discovered the benefits of including polenta in a balanced meal.
For one thing, it doesn't contain gluten, which makes it an ideal side dish for those with celiac disease. Health experts say it is easily digestible and low in calories. “It is extremely nutritious, there are many varieties and color shades depending on the consistency, coverage, production area and type of corn”, says Anna Maria Pellegrino, from the Italian Cuisine Academy.
“It’s part of our DNA”
Polenta basically comes in two varieties: hot, semi-liquid or solidified and served in rectangular sticks – snacks that are fried or grilled and then left to cool.
In the mountainous areas of northern Piedmont, Lombardy and Valle D'Aosta it is dense and bright yellow. Further south, in the valleys, it is softer and ivory in color, while along the Veneto coast it has a velvety, whitish hue – the result of being made with premium biancofiore corn that pairs well with cod, herring and squid.
When it comes to urban centers, the cities of Bergamo and Brescia are where polenta cults really flourish.
“It’s part of our DNA, just like Amatriciana for the Romans. On Sundays, polenta lunches are our religion,” says Marco Pirovano, owner of PolentOne, a street food bistro that serves takeout polenta with creative twists.
“We like to do it the 'pucio' way, with a hole in the middle to put the sauce or broth that soaks inside. The polenta in Bergamo should be so thick and dense that it sticks to the plate if you turn it over and can be cut with string.”
Because northern Italians are the biggest fans of polenta, southerners jokingly call it “polentoni,” a slightly derogatory term that has come to mean “thick and slow”—just like cornmeal porridge.
But Pirovano is proud to be a “polentone”. “I named my restaurant after that,” he says. “When I go to the polls to vote I just scribble 'Go Polenta!' In the paper.”
Pirovano even patented a machine called “pressure polenta”, which prepares as quickly as espresso and is made with an ancient type of corn flour ground in an old stone mill.
Source: CNN Brasil
Johanna Foster is an expert opinion writer with over 7 years of experience. She has a reputation for delivering insightful and thought-provoking articles on a variety of subjects. Her work can be found on some of the top online news websites, and she is currently lending her voice to the world stock market.
