Polenta

The Polenta (corn meal cooked in salt water) that is eaten today as a side dish with other tasty delicacies is the same one our parents or grandparents ate often as the only dish they could have.

Made with yellow or white corn meal, depending on local custom, Polenta was the staple diet of entire generations of the farming community of northern Italy. The poorer families would eat it for lunch as soon as it was prepared and the part that remained would be toasted on the fire for dinner and eaten with milk for breakfast the following morning.

Today, this way of life seems very distant and now Polenta is often just a side dish for the richer fare on our tables. A growing number of people are rediscovering in Polenta a healthy, rich and interesting food, from a nutritional point of view.

The Polenta we eat today is the same one of the past, the difference being that for us it is a dish that usually accompanies other delicacies while for ancient people it was all they could afford.

Many generations were fed with this food made with yellow or white corn meal, depending on local custom. At lunch they would eat it freshly made, while the remaining part was toasted on the fire for dinner or eaten with milk for breakfast.