Polenta. I Finally Grow Up to Enjoy It

You'd better read all the way to learn about polenta concia

Recently we went to one of the many fine Italian restaurants in Providence, and I chuckled as I looked at one of the items on the menu.

“Look at this. Polenta for $13, and if you add sausages or mushrooms or whatever, the price goes up exponentially.” I wondered what my grandfather would think if he saw these prices when the polenta he ate in Italy was to fill his stomach. It cost nothing. It had little to no nutritional value. But he must have remembered something good about his Pollutri polenta because it became his favorite dish in America.

Polenta is simply slow simmered ground corn and can eaten in many ways; as a main or side dish, with just butter and cheese, or topped with sauce. It can be spread out to dry, baked, fried, or grilled. But that’s not how the poor Italians in Italy nor my grandparents ate it.

Here’s the scene when I was a kid. I remember walking up the stairs of our home to Grandma's second-floor tenement where I spotted her at the stove stirring something in a large pot. From that pot bubbles of vapor gave the kitchen air a nutty aroma of her beloved gravy. In another pot, she was making polenta.

When she was done, she plopped a lump of yellow gruel onto a well-worn board that almost spanned the kitchen table. In those days in Italy, polenta was eaten just like Grandma served it; family-style from a large platter or wooden board. It allowed guests, and there often were guests, to serve themselves. Grandma, standing at her stove turned to me at the open door. I had one foot on the next stair heading to our tenement above.

Waving her gravy-laden spoon toward the board and motioning with the other hand, she spoke in a contralto, “Ed-a-wood. Vieni qua. Come in. Come in. Mangia, mangia. Hav-a some pullend.” “Tsa gooder for you.” I shuffled toward her in tiny sticky steps.

Grandpa pushed his chair closer and slipped into it, wiggling for comfort. He grabbed an extra-large well-worn spoon, studied its glinting arch, polished it with a mopine, and smiled.

Grandma plopped the gruel on a board, her playing field, on the table in front of Grandpa. It flowed like lava. He studied it with wide, grey eyes and loitered over it, but not for long. She ladled a dollop of her gravy into the magma crater made with her trusted spoon. “Her” gravy, because gravy makers are possessive, as in “I fry MY meatballs before I put them in MY gravy.” Then she hovered in the honored savory guests atop the gravy; either sausage or meatballs.

I tried the polenta, but it was dry, boring, and tasteless. Adding more gravy didn’t help. As the polenta dried, its edges hardened, and I broke a small piece to dip in the gravy. That was a little better, but to sit at the table was not for me. I had more important things to do.

Little did I know then what was to happen later in my life.

Not Grandpa. He dove like an Olympian.

The origins of polenta date to the ancient Romans. Porridge dishes were made from ground barley, fava beans, rye, or buckwheat. Corn, first planted in Italy in the 1500s, became a staple for the poor.

Mom said that polenta was the porridge that Goldilocks and the three bears enjoyed. “You should taste it, Edward. It is good.”

Sure, the bears ate it. And so too did the Italians because there was nothing else in those dark days in Italy after WWI. It was peasant’s food of little or no nutritional value. The corn meal lacked niacin and as a result, outbreaks of pellagra with confusion, intestinal symptoms, skin rash, and sometimes death occurred throughout much of Europe. It was one of the many reasons the immigrants left.

‘It’s gruel, Mom.”

“It’s not gruel. Its polenta, porridge.”

The gruel of the previous century had a bad rap. It was boiled in milk or water. Inmates in prisons and other institutions were forced to eat it. Gruel was made famous by Dickens's Oliver Twist, the little orphan boy in the workhouse who was so hungry, he asked for seconds.

Today, there are many polenta festivals throughout Italy, such as the Sagra del Polentone in Tuscany and the Piemontese town of Avigliana. The Festa della Polentata, first celebrated in 1622, occurs each year on the last day of Carnival in the Emilia-Romagna town of Tossignano.

Attendees watch polenta cook outdoors in huge copper cauldrons over wood fires, stirred by village volunteers wearing traditional yellow shirts and caps. Everyone receives free tastings seasoned with local sausage.

One of my more exciting memories of polenta was the day we spent with our dear friends, Judith and Serafino in a small town just outside of Biella, Italy, Serafino’s hometown. In that borgo, in the Old Basilica at the Sanctuary of Oropa was the shrine

of the Black Madonna.

It was a spiritual experience. Not far away was the Ristorante Fornace where our friends introduced us to our near-decadent Sunday dinner treat.

“You won’t believe this dish,” they said, a sly grin on their faces. More cholesterol than you might have in a year, but the best taste you’ll have in many. It’s called polenta concia; a typical dish from this area.”

Ahhh . . . Polenta Concia

“I’ve had polenta, but I’m guessing it’s not like what I remember from when I was a kid.”

“Most likely not.”

And then it came. A high-calorie dish, it was layered with blocks of Fontina cheese and slathered with butter. It was a chilly day, and polenta concia, along with the toasty fire in the fireplace and glasses of red wine, were the perfect way to keep warm. “Why are you smiling?” I mumbled to our friends, just a trickle of buttered polenta making its way down my chin.

“Well, it’s delicious, but rather buttery and maybe not the healthiest dish you’ll find in Italy. And you seem to be enjoying it, Ed.”

“Mm-mm.” They were right, but who cared? Who cared that it was cooked with butter and laden with up to four cheeses? That day has become deeply etched in our memories; dear friends in a special place, eating a memorable dish in Italy.

Which is all very good.

On that day in Italy, polenta became the ultimate comfort food; warm, hearty, satisfying, wholesome, and enjoyable; to share with dear friends.

And Grandpa? History was of no matter when it came to Grandpa’s love of polenta. He spooned large dollops into his plate, used the same spoon to ladle more gravy from the pan, took a hunk of Italian bread, usually the candozza (heel), and slurped up his meal while he read the local Italian newspaper, L’Eco, aloud. I wondered if it brought back memories of his youth.

Polenta has come a long way since those peasant days of the immigrants since grandma cooked it, since the three bears and Oliver Twist ate it and since the day I avoided it.

It is now a tasty offering in many restaurants; not runny, lumpy, or tasteless. I like it. I order it.

That was the great thing about polenta. It was about family and friends and oh what a special treat.

I think Grandpa and Grandma would be pleased that I grew up.