Is this polenta . . . or just mush? (2024)

Corn–the grain second only to wheat in acres planted–is making a comeback. But it’s the ground form of the grain that’s getting the buzz.

All across town, chefs are using ground corn: in the now-fancy Italian dish called polenta; in traditional Southern foods like grits, corn muffins, corn breads, corncakes and corn puddings; and in Latin American foods such as arepas, empanadas and tamales.

Most ground corn is made from field corn–in yellow, white or blue–which has less sugar and more complex carbohydrates than sweet corn. It stays on the stalk until it is dry enough to harvest.

In our markets, ground corn is sold as cornmeal in various grinds; as a convenience food, such as instant polenta; as corn flour; in baking mixes; or as corn tortillas, once tucked away in the ethnic aisle but now stacked alongside sandwich bread.

We are no longer a nation of strangers where many ethnic corn dishes are concerned.

“Historically we’ve eaten from a narrow spectrum of cuisines but as time goes on, more ethnic foods have entered our diets,” said Mark Erickson, vice president for continuing education at the Culinary Institute of America.

He added that we’re seeing immigration from places where corn is a more important part of the diet “and it’s driving the evolution of the American palate away from Northern European foods.”

Chef Mike Artlip, chairman of the culinary arts program at Kendall College, also sees a change. “They want alternatives to white bleached flour. Americans want a high-quality flour and corn’s one of them.”

What’s on the rise? “Tortillas, sopes, tamales–they’re really coming back,” Artlip said. “There also is a whole lot of desire for corn with the resurgence of Southwest and Mexican food.”

A few corn dishes prized by chefs come from other places where corn has been a star: polenta from Italy; corncakes from Rhode Island; and grits and spoon breads from the South.

Italian approach

Polenta is a thick mush made by boiling coarsely ground cornmeal in water or stock until it thickens. It is considered one of the true comfort foods of the Italian table with roots in the peasant cooking of the countryside, notably Piedmont, Lombardy and Veneto.

Mush is the same thick, cooked mixture as polenta but it can be made by using any grind of cornmeal. A mush of nearly baby-powder texture when raw can become the lightest silken liquid, with a weight just this side of a light sauce. Depending on the finishing touches–slathered with Italian cheese, Danish butter or French creme fraiche–the heartwarming comfort food all over a culinary map turns out different in different hands. The mush-and-milk ritual of our parents and grandparents during the Depression was finished off with a large pat of melting butter, sprinkled with sugar and a spice, and baptized with cold milk.

It’s essentially gruel, but with such a negative connotation, calling mush polenta is the way to confer dignity on the dish.

“Most people are potato crazed; I am polenta crazed,” Rick Tramonto writes in his cookbook, “Amuse-Bouche.” The key, the chef wrote, is to add enough butter so that it’s irresistibly rich. “I remember once eating soft polenta with roast pork at chef Gualtiero Marchesi’s three-star Michelin restaurant in Milan, Italy . . . and when we asked for seconds, they brought the pot from the kitchen and scooped the golden polenta straight onto our plates.”

In his Chicago restaurant Tru, Tramonto loves to use yellow cornmeal polenta as a backdrop under a meat dish, a fish dish or as a centerpiece. Why does he choose yellow stone-ground cornmeal when he can get white? “I love the yellow color. White washes out.”

Polenta aficionados like chef Jeff Muldrow, who owns Va Pensiero restaurant in Evanston, insist that cooking polenta is a seamless sequence of tasks, reduced to a few motions: Slowly pour the meal into the boiling liquid, reduce to a simmer, stir, stir, stir, or it’ll stick and develop lumps.

Soft polenta cooked with a higher ratio of liquid has the consistency of hot cereal. Pour it into a bowl, dress it with a buttery-rich melting cheese like mascarpone, and it’s like porridge. In its firmer style, polenta gets an instant makeover. Less liquid is used so the finished polenta is on the tighter side. In this preparation it’s poured into a sheet pan, cooled and cut. It’ll hold its shape. Grill it, fry it saute it, or roast it–it takes to all these methods.

Polenta has come to reflect a nostalgia for old times but with the profusion of polenta dishes all over town, we’re seeing it revisited in the chicest of places, at the chicest of prices.

Eastern specialty

At the heart of New England’s love affair with ground corn are the families who grew up with johnnycakes as a breakfast staple. Commonly called the johnnycakes of Rhode Island–because they are made with stone-ground white flint Indian corn from that state–they can be crusty outside, or thin and lacy like a crepe.

A matter of culinary pride in the state, the cornmeal pancakes inspire debates as to which is the true johnnycake and which is the true spelling: “johnny-,” “jonny-” or “journey-cake.”

Chef Jasper White, owner of the Summer Shack in Cambridge and other locations, said he does “the lacy one.” Served as a breakfast corn pancake with maple syrup, the chef uses only the johnnycake flour from Kenyon’s Grist Mill in Rhode Island.

“The nearest thing to a johnnycake,” said Rhode Island cookbook author Barbara Sherman Stetson, “is a Southern pone cake, because it has no leavening.” In her “Island Cookbook,” the self-appointed johnnycake queen swears by the thicker South County version, a recipe that she says has been passed down through 11 generations of her family.

Spoon bread swoon

Until baking powders were readily available, Southern housewives leavened their corn batters with eggs, turning puddings and breads into spoon breads. Wishbone Restaurant chef/owner Joel Nixon said that the soft corn bread that you can spoon out of a baking dish is like a corn muffin but with the egg whites in it.

“Most people in Chicago didn’t know what spoon bread was, so we called it corn pudding,” he said.

Wishbone’s menu is bursting with bold combinations of corn, and many items embrace corn in its whole and ground versions. The corncakes look like pancakes but they have the distinct taste of meal ground from fresh corn kernels, giving them an unmistakably gutsy taste:moist but not mealy.

“Once you cut into it,” said sous chef Kip Hursey, “green flecks of scallions and bright yellow sweet corn show up.”

Most popular are the corn muffins, but they also do grits with ham or shrimp. “Or cheese. It’s got to be sharp Cheddar shredded down,” Hursey said. “Put cheese into the grits, pour the grits into a pan, bake for 30 minutes or until they settle, cut them into squares, give them an egg wash and dredge in cornmeal. Fry ’em up.”

From the Southern states to northern Italy, the seven-centuries-old grain in its ground form is new again, especially in the kitchens of chefs who are developing a corn cuisine of their own.

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The many forms of ground corn

GRITS, OR HOMINY GRITS

Hominy is dried white or yellow corn that has had its hull and germ removed. Hominy grits refers to the ground hominy grains. They usually are simmered with water or milk until very thick, making a breakfast cereal especially popular in the South.