[Sca-cooks] Re:Polenta

[The Sheltons]

> There are references to the use of maize in Europe as early as 1539, but
Durante's is the first to specifically mention polenta.  Leonard Fuchs
states in his Herbal (1545) that maize was common, grown in many gardens and
used to make bread.
 Bear >

I just finished reading Massimo Montanari's "The Culture of Food."  He gave
the same time period for the use of maize as Bear noted.  He indicated that
there were a couple of problems with documentation.  First, the maize was
grown in home gardens and fallow fields, and therefore was not reported as a
taxable grain like wheat was.  It didn't gain in popularity among the upper
classes that early and was primarily a "peasant" food. So, there isn't a
nice paper trail with tax records and written recipes.  The other problem
was that there was no consistent nomenclature.  It was called any number of
different names in different locations.  I just sent the book back to the
library so I can't site the specifics, but one of the things they did was
call it by a foreign name {Rhodesian Millet for example}.

He also noted that buckwheat became popular in the 16th century, starting in
the Low Countries, then Germany, France and Northern Italy.  This gave them
the option of a new grey-colored polenta as opposed to the traditional
yellow from millet.

John le Burguillun