The proof is in the polenta

~Tom Harte takes a look at this mushy dish, which originated in northern Italy.

On the last Tuesday of Carnival, the people of the hamlet of Tossignano in Emilia-Romagna, Italy's famed gourmet region, will -- as they have for nearly four centuries -- arrive early in the town square to prepare for the annual polenta festival.

The centerpiece of this event is 440 pounds of polenta -- the Italian version of cornmeal mush -- cooked in giant copper pots and stirred with oar-sized wooden paddles. They'll cover it with 220 pounds of sausage, 66 pounds of ground beef, 44 pounds of pancetta, 55 pounds of grated Parmesan cheese, and a river of Ragu, and pay homage to the golden porridge that -- especially in northern Italy -- rivals pasta as the perfect comfort food.

Given such an elaborate ceremony it's no wonder that Marcella Hazen, America's premier teacher of northern Italian cooking, says calling polenta merely cornmeal mush "is a most indelicate use of language." In the kitchens of Italy, she notes, it is more than food -- it is a rite.

Embedded in the country's culture, polenta has inspired countless Italian poets, novelists, artists and musicians. Even today, Italians sometimes refer to polenta as "traviata," a reference right out of a Verdi opera.

This polenta recipe, a traditonal Italian dish, was adapted from from a book by Michele Anna Jordan. (Diane L. Wilson)

Cookbook author Carol Field declares that the paiolo, the copper pot in which polenta is traditionally cooked, is practically sacred, as Italy's fascist government learned during World War II when it demanded that all metal be donated to the war effort. When nearly everybody refused to contribute their precious pots, the government was forced to relent and declare the paiolo exempt.

Ironically, since polenta is made from corn, it is -- like the tomato (another foodstuff revered by Italians and considered indispensable to their cuisine) -- a New World food. Before Columbus returned to Barcelona from his first voyage, as legend has it carrying in his pocket a few kernels of what polenta authority Michele Anna Jordan calls "the New World's most remarkable contribution to humanity," Italian polenta as we know it today was nonexistent.

To be sure, there was something similar going back to Greek and Roman times, but it was made with millet, chestnut flour, chick-pea flour, barley, farro or some other grain -- not corn. In Tuscany polenta made out of buckwheat is still popular. Not until corn arrived in Italy through the port of Venice in the mid-17th century did polenta become the golden staple of northern Italian cooking, though the Venetians, befitting their sophistication, actually preferred white cornmeal for polenta. Today white polenta is still more common there than yellow.

Venetian sophistication notwithstanding, historically polenta has been regarded as peasant food, owing to the early European view that corn is essentially animal feed. Southern Italians still sometimes refer disdainfully to northerners as "polentoni" or polenta eaters. But these days polenta has become fashionable, appearing regularly on upscale restaurant menus.

One reason for what has been termed "the gentrification of polenta" is the mystique conferred by its reputation for being labor-intensive. "No other food requires such a precise ritual, such particular utensils, perfect measuring of water, salt and flour, such scrupulous and attentive care," maintains the handbook of the Order of the Knights of Polenta, an organization based in Bergamo. This may have been true in the days when polenta was cooked over an open fire, but not anymore.

Oven-method soft polenta

This recipe, adapted from Michele Anna Jordan's book on the subject, requires you to stir only once to produce creamy polenta that can be a foil for a host of toppings like sauted vegetables, Ragu, stews, creamed chicken, short ribs, sausages or just butter and cheese.

4 cups water

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 teaspoon pepper

1 cup coarse-ground polenta

2 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Combine water, salt, pepper and polenta in a 1 1/2-quart ovenproof dish. Dot with butter. Bake at 350 degrees on top rack of oven for 40 minutes. Stir in cheese and bake another 10 minutes. Let rest 5 minutes before serving.

Listen to A Harte Appetite Fridays at 8:49 a.m. on KRCU, 90.9 on your FM dial. Write A Harte Appetite, c/o the Southeast Missourian, P.O. Box 699, Cape Girardeau, Mo., 63702-0699 or by e-mail to tharte@semissourian.com.