In praise of polenta

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Posted at 12:00PM, 07 August 2009 by Carol Wilson - Food writer

I love to travel abroad and one of my favourite countries is Italy, especially when it comes to seeking out gastronomic gems. Among the many delicious Italian regional specialities I've come across, one of my favourites is polenta - golden-yellow cornmeal made from ground maize. There's also white polenta (polenta bianca) which is popular in Venice, although it's more expensive than the yellow.

No longer 'the food of the poor', nowadays polenta is served in homes and restaurants throughout Italy

Polenta is grown in northern Italy and is the traditional diet staple, more so than pasta, which is favoured more in the south. It's gluten-free, tasty and filling and at its most basic, it's boiled with salted water to a thick porridge consistency and usually served with a strong tasting sauce or cheese; herbs, garlic, cheese and butter can also be added as it cooks. No longer 'the food of the poor', nowadays polenta is served in homes and restaurants throughout Italy.

Much of Italy's polenta is still made the old-fashioned way, which involves constant stirring for up to 50 minutes. You can buy 'instant' polenta which takes just a few minutes cooking, but I don't think that the results and the flavour are as good as the traditional type. Some people think (wrongly in my opinion) that polenta is bland and stodgy, but when made correctly it's very tasty. The secret is to cook and season it properly, just as they do in Italy. I enjoy cooking with polenta because it's so versatile and absorbs any flavour it's matched with. Boiled polenta creamed with butter, Taleggio cheese, toasted pine nuts, garlic and finely chopped spring onions makes a delicious inexpensive meal.

Boiled polenta can be poured into a tray and left to cool and set. I cut it into slices and fry them in a little butter or brush with oil and grill them before topping with cheese or vegetables. Polenta is great too served with soup or stew instead of bread. Deep-fried polenta slices, tossed in sugar and lemon zest and served with mascarpone, is a simple but delectable Italian dessert.

Instant polenta is fine to use in baking; it makes fantastic bread and cakes with a slightly crunchy, grainy texture. Warm polenta cake soaked in a fresh lemon syrup is one of my favourite summer desserts, served with a generous dollop of whipped cream and perhaps a few strawberries.

Most supermarkets sell polenta; you'll find it in Italian delis too. It's available both coarse and finely ground.

How do you like your polenta?

Comments

Anneli

7 August, 1:49PM
Anneli

I like to add mascarpone and basil to my polenta, which I cook in water with the tiniest bit of Marigold Boullion stock added to it. Maybe some rocket too.

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Emily

7 August, 2:55PM
Emily

John Dickie's history of Italian cuisine, Delizia, has an interesting bit about the transformaton of polenta from peasant food to chic restaurant ingredient. I love cheesy polenta, but find it hard to eat a whole bowlful!

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jo_ilie

7 August, 4:04PM
jo_ilie

Polenta is just as important in the Romanian cuisine. It's still widely popular in the countryside and polenta-and-cheese-and-sour-cream dish is considered one of the national dishes and you can find it in any restaurant. Here we usually cook it as simply as possible - ground maize, water, salt and oil - then we eat it with a variety of proteins: hot milk, fried eggs, telemea (a white hard cheese made from cow, buffalo, sheep or goat milk), sour cream. Or as a side dish for fried chicken, grilled fish (together with garlic sauce) or stuffed cabbage. You can even make some types of desserts is you add sugar and cream cheese. If cooked right, polenta is very tasty and versatile. People actually say that once you know how to cook polenta, you're ready to get married. I wouldn't hold my breath about that, but it does show how important the dish is in the local cuisine. :)

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Chris Pakett

10 August, 11:31AM
Chris Pakett

I've found tossing potatoes in palenta before roasting gives them a crunchy texture. A very tasty variation.

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miniminx

10 August, 6:48PM
miniminx

the first time i ever tasted polenta, i was in romania. small world! and delicious, too :)

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smitty

10 August, 11:21PM
smitty

I use polenta to make corn bread. its so easy to make and is delicious with soup.

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chrisrecipes

12 August, 3:20PM
chrisrecipes

I am Irish and was born in 1953. One of my earliest memories is being in the flour store at the back of my parents shop. There were big metal bins there used to store loose flours and animal feed. The shop cat lived there as well to keep down the mice. One of the bins contained a cornmeal called Yellow Meal or Chickmeal which, as the name suggests, was a chicken feed. This, my mother told me, was distributed to the starving people during the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840's. When she was young it was still made into a porridge and eaten by the very poor. This porridge was called stirabout and when she made it for us to try we loved it. It became a regular treat for myself and my brother but we were told not to tell people that we were given Stirabout to eat as it was a sign of real poverty! Times change and now I can buy Polenta in small packets for big prices. It looks and tastes exactly the same as the yellow meal of my memory. Is it the same thing I wonder?

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dandifiedviolence

14 August, 9:44AM
dandifiedviolence

I find it hilarious that some people eat something just because it's fashionable/hideously expensive. If polenta wasn't all the rage right now, and it was unheard of over here, a lot of 'foodies' would turn their noses up at it.

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kittendothroar

16 August, 4:06PM
kittendothroar

I recently bought dried polenta for the first time and experimented, cooked quickly with boiling water and some tomato based seasoning mix and lightly cooked courgette and a little parmesan, shaped into cakes and served warm, made a nice summery alternative dish :)

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lili

26 October, 8:48AM
lili

How long before I receive my <a href="http://www.mytobling.com/"><strong>Uggs On sale</strong></a>?

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