Ancient Grains for Modern Meals - Maria Speck [65]
Corn, like all grains, is most flavorful when freshly milled as a whole. Its coarse yet supple texture and sweetness are unsurpassed. If you have yet to try freshly milled stone-ground cornmeal from a traditional American mill (for sources), compare it someday to its shelf-stable, degerminated cousins whose aromatic germ and bran have been removed. The difference will be as striking as the contrast between a supermarket tomato bought in the dead of winter and one from the farmers’ market in mid-August.
When I moved to the United States, the American passion for corn surprised me because in Greece, cornmeal has long been considered the food of the poor. People ate corn when they had not much else to eat. But poverty and lack of resources inspire creativity at the stove. This is why Germans long for the delectable simplicity of Arme Leute Küche (poor people’s cuisine) and Italy’s austere and flavorful cucina povera (the cooking of the poor) has become hip and trendy all over.
If you think cornbread is an all-American treat, just visit a family in northwestern Greece. To this day, mothers and grandmothers will whisk cornmeal into delicious rustic pies bursting with leafy greens, feta cheese, and fresh herbs. And while corn conjures up the poverty of the war years for many Greeks, some are rediscovering the simple tastes and virtues of long-forgotten grains such as wheat berries, bulgur, and corn. Crusty farmer’s breads are reappearing in trendy city bakeries, their interior crumbly with a light yellow hue from cornmeal, as has the bobota, a sweet cornbread studded with raisins or currants, and sometimes soaked in orange-honey syrup.
Cornmeal has always been a staple in my pantry. A bowl of warm polenta has been a comfort food in winter ever since I owned my first set of German-made, heavy-bottomed stainless steel pots. I’m smitten by stone-ground American corn, yet I typically don’t bother cooking it for a whole hour. Thirty minutes will have to do for dinner, although patience does reward you with a delectably sweeter mouthful of the grain. Be sure to try it once, or on occasion. Cornmeal in all its variations, polenta being one of them, is infinitely adaptable. You can serve it sweet or savory, finely ground for comfort, or chewy for a more textured side. Cook it in water, stock, or milk; add sugar, honey, and fruit for a warming breakfast; or stir in cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, herbs, and vegetables and dab it with butter for savory meals. To me, cornmeal is a magic hat for kitchen leftovers: throw in what you have on hand, and out comes dinner. This is reason enough to love cornmeal.
Last but not least, there is the awesome sensation of corn au naturel, freshly picked, ideally by yourself—standing small in a field between sky-high stalks of corn, searching for the perfectly ripe ear. When I was a kid in Greece, we would sometimes light a fire right there, in the dusk of the evening—the farmer joining us next to the crackling fire to cherish this one grain as is, plain, no salt, not even butter, just the memorable moment when the chewy kernels burst their sweet juice into your mouth. I have since had corn on the cob as a teenager in Germany, when living and working in India, and prepared by my Iranian sister-in-law’s parents on a porch in Toronto—proof that the love for these kernels is universal.
Chapter 3
SOUPS & STEWS
Don’t know what to dish up for dinner tonight? Soups and stews offer an easy way out of this everyday dilemma. Nourishing and warming in the dark months of the year, light and refreshing in the summer—for me, they always fit the bill. They are especially rewarding when your crisper drawer just yields two carrots, a leek, and half a fennel bulb, or any other forgotten vegetables from more ambitious meals. A soup will