Corn

Appears in

Grist: A Practical Guide to Cooking Grains, Beans, Seeds, and Legumes

Published 2021

About

Jim Harrison once wrote an essay detailing a conversation he had with his mother about the semantics between polenta and cornmeal mush. They are the same thing—ground cornmeal that is slowly cooked to a porridge consistency—but it was the name that changed.

“Do you want a bowl of cornmeal mush?”

“It is called polenta now.”

“Mush has always been fine by me.”

I respect his mother’s sentiment. She didn’t need the Italians to validate a dish that she had been cooking and eating happily for years. I also understand wanting to feel like what we eat in our homes mirrors the food traditions of others. Sometimes we adopt, sometimes we draw parallels, sometimes we can’t be bothered.