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It is golden in color, grainy, sticky, and quite bland when eaten raw.
But polenta’s versatility has turned it into a culinary star, with Italy’s famous boiled cornmeal dish and endless flavor combinations.
Toppings can include everything from venison, fish, rabbit, wild boar, and veal to mushrooms, tomato sauce, and melted cheese. It can also be used in desserts such as biscuits, pies, and pancakes. Some people eat it with Nutella.
And don’t forget the texture. They come in a variety of shapes and can be chewy, sticky, crunchy, or very creamy.
Polenta is eaten all over Italy, but it is especially popular in the three main regions of northern Italy: Veneto, Lombardy, and Piedmont.
Giovanna Zilli, 85, has fond memories of her Piedmontese grandmother slowly stirring cornmeal mash in a giant container. Paiolo A copper cauldron is placed over the fireplace, served on a wooden table, and topped with tomato sauce, sausage, and onions, and everyone takes their portion.
“We took a spoonful and put it on a plate. It melted in your mouth and was delicious,” she recalls.
“The next day, we cut the leftover dried crunchy polenta into sticks and our kids soaked them in milk and sprinkled them with sugar for breakfast.”
Today, polenta is considered Italy’s most popular staple food after pasta and pizza. Although it remains essentially a humble communal dish, it was eaten primarily out of necessity during World War II.
At the end of a hard day’s work, several members of the family would gather around the table and share polenta. picasso Method. To add flavor to plain polenta while preserving the fish, they used their hands as spoons to scrape each bite onto dried herring that hung from a string from the kitchen ceiling.
Food historians note that ancient Romans ate a softer type of polenta made with cooked, ground spelled flour, but the version people know and love today has its roots in , located in the Americas across the Atlantic Ocean.
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This historical illustration depicts the polenta festival in Piedmont, Italy.
It all started when Christopher Columbus brought the “exotic” crop corn, or maize, back to the Old World. The Old Continent was unfamiliar with the product until the 1492 voyage.
According to chef and food historian Amedeo Sandri, corn was later imported to Italy by missionaries who returned to the Friuli region from the Americas.
Large-scale cultivation spread to Veneto and Lombardy in the 1600s, replacing traditional crops and sparking an agricultural revolution. Currently, more than a dozen varieties of Italian corn are grown in this country.
“Farmers realized that corn has higher yields, shorter growing cycles, and more power to work the field than millet, rye, and wheat,” says Sandri.
“However, this polenta-based diet had some serious side effects.”
Northerners became too addicted to plain boiled cornmeal. pellagra, caused by a deficiency of niacin, also known as vitamin B3. Many reportedly suffered from dementia, diarrhea, and skin rashes as a result of the disease.
However, advances in nutritional research and the diversification of diets in the early to mid-20th century changed everything, and in the following years Italians discovered the benefits of incorporating polenta into a balanced diet.
First, it is gluten-free, making it an ideal side dish for people with celiac disease. Health experts say it’s easy to digest and low in calories.
“It is very nutritious and comes in many varieties and shades, depending on consistency, toppings, origin and type of corn,” says Anna Maria Pellegrino of the Italian Academy of Culinary Arts.
“It has a delicate taste, so it can always be paired with other foods.”
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Women rest after picking and storing corn on the cob in Piedmont, Italy.
There are basically two types of polenta. It can be served hot, semi-liquid, or solid, and in rectangular sticks. Finger food fried in butter or olive oil, or grilled and cooled.
In the northern mountainous regions of Piedmont, Lombardy and Valle d’Aosta, it is dark yellow. Further south in the valley it becomes softer and ivory, while along the Veneto coast it becomes velvety and whitish. This is the result of being made with the finest raw materials. biancofiore Corn goes well with cod, herring, and squid.
When it comes to urban centers, the cities of Bergamo and Brescia are where the polenta faith really flourishes.
“It’s part of our DNA, like the Romans’ Amatriciana. The Sunday polenta lunch is our religion,” says PolentOne, a street bistro that serves take-out polenta with a creative twist. says owner Marco Pilovano.
“We like it that way.”PetitThere is a hole in the middle, and you can pour the sauce or soup soaked into it. Bergamo polenta should be so thick and dense that it will stick to the plate and break with threads when you turn it over. ”
People in northern Italy eat polenta the most, so people in the south jokingly call them polenta.Polentoni”a somewhat pejorative term, has come to mean “thick and dull,” similar to cornmeal mash.
But Pilovano prides himself on being “.Polentone. ”
“I named my eatery after it,” he says. “When you go to the ballot box to vote, you just scribble ‘Go Polenta!’ on a piece of paper.”
Pilovano also patented a so-called “draft polenta” machine that makes polenta as quickly as espresso, made from a type of ancient corn flour ground in old stone mills.
A modern take on the Italian classic, his restaurant’s polenta is topped with yogurt, bacon, salad, a sprinkle of sugar and mozzarella cheese.
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A versatile dish, polenta is often served as a dessert.
Despite its simplicity, polenta is not immune to culinary controversy, at least when it comes to toppings.
Popular polenta combinations in northern Italy include: Osei – “Little Bird” – This obsession has led to multiple lawsuits and angered wildlife conservationists, including WWF Italy.
In 1992, the European Union banned the hunting of protected birds such as sparrows, blacktip reef sharks, starlings, larks, woodpeckers, robins, and nightingales. All these birds were once favored by hunters and hunters. Polenta e Osei fan.
Only five species could be legally hunted and eaten: thrushes, starlings, and larks.
And another big blow to polenta Osei’s fans arrived in 2005 when the EU banned the trade in all wild birds, including species that were allowed to be hunted. This meant hunters could no longer sell their catch to restaurants and food fairs, and many operators removed the dish from their menus.
However, families continued to celebrate weekend hunting by steaming pots. Polenta e OseiAnd hunters reportedly continued to secretly sell birds to “hushroom” taverns.
The legal battle dragged on for years, with local residents and politicians fiercely opposing the ban. As campaigns unfolded, exemptions and loopholes inevitably emerged.
For example, in 2022 local authorities in Lombardy lifted a ban on bird trade, citing the region’s historical and cultural ties and the traditional bird trade. Osei Tableware. However, there is one rule. Hunters must provide Osei for free to customers.
“To tell you the truth, we have always eaten small birds, of course legal birds,” says Piero Dominoni, owner of the mountain tavern Rifugio Sespedosio in the village of Camerata Cornello, near Bergamo.
“It is a part of our soul and we cannot abandon it. The unbanning movement started right in our villages. Protected birds remain off-limits, but everything else is legal. is Osei Thrushes, blackbirds, wild fowl, sandpipers, pheasants, and waterfowl are fair game. ”
Business owners in Italy’s Veneto region are not ignoring trade restrictions, Sandri said.
“The region has not lifted the ban yet, but everyone here continues to buy and eat legal Osei,” he says. “The hunter is getting smarter and says he is gifting his catch to restaurants.”