Facts About Polenta
Polenta is a dish of boiled cornmeal that was historically made from other grains. It may be served as a hot porridge, or it may be allowed to cool and solidify into a loaf that can be baked, fried, or grilled.
The variety of cereal used is usually yellow maize, but often buckwheat, white maize, or mixtures thereof may be used. Coarse grinds make a firm, coarse polenta; finer grinds make a creamy, soft polenta. Polenta is a staple of Northern Italian, Swiss, Slovenian and the Balkans (where it is also called kačamak) cuisines (and, to a lesser extent, the Central Italian one, e.g. Tuscany) and its consumption was traditionally associated with lower classes, as in times past cornmeal mush was an essential food in their everyday nutrition. In Romania and Moldova, this dish is known as mămăligă, in Hungary as puliszka.
As it is known today, polenta derives from earlier forms of grain mush (known as puls or pulmentum in Latin) that were commonly eaten since Roman times. Before the introduction of corn (maize) from America in the 16th century, polenta was made from starchy ingredients like farro (wheat), chestnut flour, millet, spelt (wheat), and chickpeas.
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