Polenta is a cornmeal mush popular in Italian, Swiss, Croatian, 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 what is on its own basically a fairly bland food, invigorating it with various cheeses or tomato sauces.
Polenta is similar to corn grits, but is made with ordinary cornmeal while grits are made from corn that has been processed into hominy. There are many different types of polenta, such as basic or soft polenta.
Regional varieties:
- in Romania, it is better known as mămăligă
- in Croatia, it is common on the Adriatic coast 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 and gorgonzola, and polenta and missultin. 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.
See also
- In South Africa, cornmeal mush is a staple food called mealie pap; in Zimbabwe it is called sadza.
- Farina
