5/27/2023 0 Comments Polenta aldenteIn many ways, polenta reflects the people who have relied upon it for so long – those long suffering peasants that had to make do with what they had. Leftover polenta is also very versatile as it can be fried and covered in butter, melted lardo, or cheese. It can also be grilled and served with Bruschetta-like toppings like mushrooms and tomatoes. Polenta in cake form can be layered with Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese and baked. Polenta can also be served at regional meat dishesas contorno, side dish to Ossobuco, waterfowl and fish. Soft polenta is often a replacement for bread during a meal, or instead of the pasta course, served with butter and cheese and possibly shaved truffles. It can be served with nearly anything and that is why it has spread to every corner of Italy, always making use of what is locally grown or raised. The key to the popularity of Polenta is its sheer versatility. Once cooked, polenta can be served as it is, soft and porridge like, or poured out onto a slab and allowed to cool to form a cake.Ĭooking polenta on a stove. Of course you can find instant polenta today – but the less said about it, the better. Cooking polenta using a double boiler method is even easier. Today in a modern kitchen with a good heavy pot, polenta preparation is not so painstaking, but it still does need attention and occasional stirring. The process to make soft polenta involves a 3 to 1 ratio of water and polenta and constant stirring for up to 50 minutes. Much of Italy’s polenta is still made the old-fashioned way, using a round bottom copper pot known as “paiolo” and a long wooden spoon known as a “tarello”. In the world of cooking, few dishes have the stigma attached to their preparation as polenta. From then on, most of Italy’s polenta was made from corn, which ranges in color from golden yellow to Veneto’s white polenta. Amazingly, this simple act of greed on the part of landowners helped shape a major component of Italian cooking. However cornmeal polenta is very tasty and filling, and therefore continued to be a traditional dish long after conditions improved for the poor. Polenta e cinghiale (polenta with a wild boar stew) is a typical dish of many areas of the North and the Centre of Italy (Rowena/flickr) This new form of polenta was abundant, but seriously lacking in nutrients compared to earlier forms of the dish. The new crop was a perfect match for the farms of Northern Italy, where landowners could grow vast fields of corn for profit, while forcing the peasantry to subsist on cornmeal. Buckwheat polenta would eventually loose part of its popularity when a crop from the New World arrived in Italy, sometime in the 15th or 16th centuries: maize. This nutritive grain – known as grano saraceno – is still popular in Tuscany for making polenta and adds to the dish a distinctive flavor widely favored for centuries. However things would slowly improve for the dish, if not the peasantry – the first being the introduction of buckwheat into Italy by the Saracens. For the next few centuries, nothing changed in the history of polenta, much like the living conditions of those who ate it most – the peasantry. In Roman times, milling techniques had greatly improved and the coarsely ground flour favored for pulmentum had mostly been replaced by farina, a more thinly ground variety. However, even though bread was widely available in Ancient Rome, the legions and the poor alike preferred the simplicity and tastiness of their early polenta. Polenta used to be cooked in a copper pan over the fire.In Roman times, polenta (or as they knew it, pulmentum) was a staple of the mighty Roman Legions, who would eat it in either a porridge or cake-like form, just as it happens today. There are countless versions of this traditional dish: taragna, corn, buckwheat and Veneto style, the latter a white polenta. ![]() Polenta became a staple food, for the popular classes in particular, bringing to life a veritable "civilization of polenta". Polenta, as in pulse or grain flour cooked in water, has very ancient origins, but it only became what it is today after the discovery of America, as corn, which gives it that sunny yellow color, came from the new continent. ![]() Polenta is a peasant yet delicious and substantial dish that has prevented hunger over the centuries with great dignity. There are few dishes with such a strong identity and affective value, not just for the northern regions, but for people of the mountains from all over Italy. An Italian abroad will miss pasta and coffee a native of Lombardy will miss polenta.
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