Stone-ground polenta

Polenta bramata

What it is

Maize reached the Veneto in the sixteenth century and within two hundred years had pushed almost everything else off a peasant table — so completely that in 1771 a Milanese doctor gave the deficiency disease of a maize-only diet its name, pellagra. Bramata is the coarse end of the milling, crushed between stones that leave the germ in, which is why it goes rancid in months where degerminated meal keeps for years.

In the kitchen

Count on forty-five minutes and four parts water to one of meal, rained in through your fingers while you whisk, or it lumps on contact. Buy small amounts and keep the bag in the freezer: stone-ground meal still has its germ and turns rancid quickly.

Goes with

Butter Parmesan Porcini Sage Gorgonzola dolce Olive oil

Same species

Instant modified waxy maize starch Blue corn Corn Cornstarch Dextrose Hominy (nixtamalised corn)

Also used with

Bitto Castelmagno Cotechino Figatellu Fontina Valle d’Aosta Green tomato

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