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With sopressa salami and mushrooms, this polenta was made with farina gialla di Storo (yellow flour of Storo).

Polenta is coarsely or finely ground yellow or white cornmeal (ground maize)^[1] used as a foodstuff. It is cooked by boiling to a paste in water or a liquid such as soup stock, and may be eaten with other ingredients. After boiling, it may be baked, fried or grilled; leftover polenta is often used this way. As is common with many foods, the term may refer to the ingredient or a cooked dish made with it (as with rice, beans, etc.).

Polenta is originally an Italian word, derived from the Latin for hulled and crushed grain, especially barley-meal; maize was not cultivated in Europe until the early 16th century.^[2] It also comes from the same base as "pollen"^[1].

Description[link]

Polenta and rabbit

As it is known today, polenta derives from earlier forms of grain mush (known as puls or pulmentum in Latin or more commonly as gruel or porridge), commonly eaten in Roman times and after. Before the introduction of corn from the New World in the 16th century, polenta was made with such starchy ingredients as farro, chestnut flour, millet, spelt, or chickpeas.^[3]

Polenta has a smooth, creamy texture due to the gelatinization of starch in the grain, though it may not be completely homogeneous if a coarse grind or a particularly hard grain such as flint corn is used.

Polenta was originally and still is classified as a peasant food. In the 1940s and 1950s, polenta was often eaten with just a little salted anchovy or herring, sometimes topped with sauces. The reliance on maize as a staple food caused outbreaks of pellagra throughout much of Europe until the 20th century and in the American South during the early 1900s. Maize lacks readily accessible niacin unless cooked with alkali, which releases it.

Preparation[link]

Polenta, by Pietro Longhi

Fast food polenta

Polenta is cooked by simmering in a water-based liquid; it may be cooked with other ingredients, or eaten with them once cooked. It is often cooked in a huge copper pot known in Italian as a paiolo. Polenta is known to be a native dish of and to have originated from Friuli.^{[citation needed]} Boiled polenta may be left to set, then baked or fried; leftover polenta may be used this way. Some Lombard polenta dishes are polenta taragna (which includes buckwheat flour), 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, such as small songbirds in the case of the Venetian and Lombard dish polenta e osei. In some areas of Piedmont, it can be also made of potatoes instead of cornmeal (polenta bianca).

The variety of cereal used is usually yellow maize, but buckwheat, white maize, or mixtures thereof are also used. Coarse grinds make a firm, coarse polenta; finer grinds make a creamy, soft polenta.^[4]

Polenta takes a long time to cook, typically simmering in four to five times its volume of watery liquid for about 45 minutes with almost constant stirring, necessary for even gelatinization of the starch. Some alternative cooking techniques are meant to speed up the process, or not to require supervision. Quick-cooking (cooked, instant) polenta is widely used and can be prepared in a few minutes; it is considered inferior to cooking polenta from unprocessed cornmeal and not ideal for eating unless baked or fried after simmering.^[4]

In his book Heat, Bill Buford talks about his experiences as a line cook in Mario Batali's Italian restaurant Babbo. Buford details the differences in taste between instant polenta and slow-cooked polenta, and describes a method of preparation that takes up to three hours, but does not require constant stirring: "polenta, for most of its cooking, is left unattended.... If you don't have to stir it all the time, you can cook it for hours—what does it matter, as long as you're nearby?"^[5] Cook's Illustrated magazine has described a method using a microwave oven that reduces cooking time to 12 minutes and requires only a single stirring to prepare 3½ cups of cooked polenta, and in March 2010 presented a stovetop, near stir-less method, using a pinch of baking soda (adding alkali), which replicates the traditional effect.^[6][7][8] Kyle Phillips suggested making it in a polenta maker or in a slow cooker.^[9]

Cooked polenta can be shaped into balls, patties, or sticks, and then fried in oil, baked, or grilled until golden brown; fried polenta is called crostini di polenta or polenta fritta. This type of polenta became particularly popular in southern Brazil as a consequence of northern Italian immigration.

Similarity with other foods[link]

Europe[link]

Polenta with sausages

• In Albania, it is called harapash or kaçamak.
• In southern Austria, polenta is also eaten for breakfast (sweet polenta); the polenta pieces are either dipped in café au lait or served in a bowl with the café au lait poured on top of it. (This is a favourite of children.)
• In Bulgaria, the dish is called kachamak (качамак).
• The Corsican variety is called pulinta, and it is made with sweet chestnut flour rather than cornmeal.
• In Croatia, polenta is common on the Adriatic coast, where it is known as palenta or pura; in northwestern part of Croatia and around Zagreb, it is known as žganci. On the Adriatic Croatian coast, polenta goes together with fish or frog stew (brujet, brudet).
• In Hungary, it is known as puliszka and is usually made of coarse cornmeal. Traditionally, it is prepared with either sweetened milk or goat's milk cottage cheese, bacon or mushrooms.
• In Macedonia and Serbia, it is called palenta or kačamak (качамак).
• In Portugal, it is known as papas de milho, pirão or xerém and on Madeira it is known as milho frito.
• The Romanian variety is called mămăligă; this word is also borrowed into the Russian (Мамалыга, but also known as кукурузная каша).
• In Serbia. it is called kačamak or pura.
• In Slovenia, it is also known as polenta.Polenta is used to be eaten mainly in the Slovenian Littoral, while in central and eastern Slovenia, it was replaced by the buckwheat žganci, then almost unknown in the western part of the country.
• In Turkey, muhlama is common, especially in the northern region of Turkey.

North and South American[link]

Polenta is very similar to coosh, a dish of boiled cornmeal mush, which is also often sliced and fried, but which is often eaten with sweet toppings such as maple syrup. A common dish in the cuisine of the Southern United States is grits, with the difference that grits are usually made from cooked, coarsely ground, alkali-treated (nixtamalized) kernels (ground hominy).

Polenta is similar to boiled maize dishes of Mexico, where both maize and hominy originate.

The Brazilian variety is also known as angu. Originally made by Native Americans, it is a kind of polenta without salt or any kind of oil. Nowadays "Italian" polenta is much more common at Brazilian tables, especially in the southern and southeastern regions (which have high numbers of Italian immigrants), although some people still call it angu.

Polenta is also a very traditional meal in Uruguay and Argentina, where many Italians emigrated in the 19th and 20th centuries.

A dessert dish called majarete made from grated corn or cornmeal, milk, and sugar is popular in Cuba and the Dominican Republic.

African and Caribbean[link]

In South Africa, cornmeal mush is a staple food called mealie pap; elsewhere in southern Africa it is called phutu-(pap) or is'tshwala. It is similar to polenta, but most often is not as dense.

• In Zimbabwe - sadza or phaletshe
• In Botswana - nshima
• In Zambia - oshifima
• In Namibia - pap
• In East Africa, a similar dish called ugali is named from the Swahili.
• In Mauritius, polenta is commonly used to make poudine maïs

Fufu, a starch-based food from West and Central Africa, may also be made from maize meal. In northern Angola, it is known as funge, an is the probable source of names for the dish in a number of Caribbean countries, destination of slaves from Angola and elsewhere along the West Coast.

In the Caribbean, similar dishes are

• pastelle (Trinidad and Tobago)
• cou-cou (Barbados)
• funchi (Curaçao and Aruba)
• funjie (Antigua and Barbuda)
• fungi (Virgin Islands)
• funche in Puerto Rican cuisine
• mayi moulin in Haitian cuisine

See also[link]

Food portal

• Cornmeal
• Farina (food)
• Ga'at
• Hasty pudding
• Mămăligă
• Mush
• Nshima
• Pap
• Pudding corn
• Sadza
• Ugali

Notes[link]

References[link]

Giorgio V. Brandolini, Storia e gastronomia del mais e della patata nella Bergamasca, Orizzonte Terra, Bergamo, 2007. 32 pages.

External links[link]

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Polenta

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Polenta

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Mark Bittman (born c.1950) is an American food journalist and author. He is a columnist for The New York Times.

Education[link]

Bittman is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School Class of 1967 and of Clark University.^[1]

Career[link]

Bittman is a prolific author on the topic of food and cooking. Three of his books, including Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef, have been given the IACP/Julia Child and/or James Beard awards.

Bittman published his book Leafy Greens in 1995, How to Cook Everything in 1998, Fish - The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking in 1999 and Simple to Spectacular in 2000.

In 2005 he published the book, The Best Recipes in the World and Bittman Takes On America's Chefs and hosted the Public Television series Bittman Takes on America's Chefs which won the James Beard Award for best cooking series.^[2]

In 2007 he published How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and created the film "What's wrong with what we eat?".

Bittman appeared with Gwyneth Paltrow and Mario Batali, in a PBS series called Spain... on the road Again in 2008.

In 2009 Bittman published the book Food Matters on food related topics such as environmental challenges, lifestyle diseases, overproduction and over consumption of meat and simple carbohydrates, and began the TV series Kitchen Express.

In 2010, Bittman created The Food Matters Cookbook; an expansion of the principles and recipes in his prior book.

Bittman has written books related to his New York Times column: The Minimalist Cooks at Home, The Minimalist Cooks Dinner and The Minimalist Entertains^[2] His final Minimalist column was published on January 26, 2011. Bittman continued writing as a columnist for the New York Times Magazine and had a column in the paper's Opinion section; he also blogged.^[3]:

Bittman wrote a pair of articles for The New York Times Week in Review, called “Rethinking the Meat Guzzler” and “The Future of Fish”.

Bittman has appeared on NBC's The Today Show and NPR's All Things Considered.^[2] and appeared as a guest judge on the Food Network competition series Chopped.^{[citation needed]} He also hosts a weekly cooking video on the New York Times website.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life[link]

Bittman lives in New York City with his wife, Kelly Doe, a New York Times graphic designer and art director.^{[citation needed]} He has two adult daughters from a prior marriage. Bittman runs marathons and is a licensed pilot.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Video: Voting with your mouth with Mark Bittman and Ezra Klein
• Video: Mark Bittman on what's wrong with what we eat at EG Conference in 2007