Gruel. Porridge.
If those nouns were ever on my evening’s menu, I’d just be more bluntly aware I was in prison. But call it polenta and leave it to those Italians to make it gourmet. With their kissy face, fingers striking with the beat of every syllable, pinch of salt over the shoulder ways… only the Italians could verbally turn rags into culinary riches. But honestly, this is all just cornmeal, and while inmates and Italians argue over the nomenclature, I’ll take a little butter with my cornbread please.
I’ve always had a cringe worthy fear of polenta (let’s keep that to the imagination). In typical Evan style I overlooked polenta’s credibility when it comes to being a flavorful and filling meal. So when I dialed up my Mum on Sunday for a little dish direction, I was a bit shocked when she immediately pointed me in its gritty and bland direction.
*Ring Ring*
“Hey Mom! How’s it go . . . “
“Evan!!! What the hell? You never call anymore!”
“Mom, we talk everyday c’mon . . .”
“Ya just . . . ya just gotta keep in touch!!! I worry about you!!! You excited to come home? The dogs say hi!!!!!”
“That’s great Mom, the dogs are talking now . . . anyway!!! I need to cook something, and I’m lost on ideas an . . .”
“Polenta!!!”
“What . . . but . . . but I don’t really . . .”
“You’re gonna want to cook polenta, with a little mushroom ragout. Oh it’s just delicious”
*Click* . . .
And that’s how my Mum set the stage for the evening’s meal. She texted me a quick and easy recipe, and I was off to Carlino’s to make a little meal time magic.
There are three major ways to attack the polenta cooking process. The first is to purchase it in pre-cooked clear tube form. I’ve always been a bit weirded out by this variant, but it is damn good for slicing and pan frying—top it with rosemary, sea salt, and a little goat cheese.
The second and easiest (as well as most appropriate for this dish), is instant polenta in a box. It’s not the most flavorful route, but you can’t beat taking the dry mix, salt, water, earth, wind and heat. Combine, bring to a boil, and in three minutes you have Captain Plannnnnet-errrrrrr fresh cooked polenta!!!!! The third and best way to make polenta would require lots of time and the assistance of a few key people. If you find yourself with a couple of hours to kill and in the presence of either Mario Batali or an elderly Italian woman with a babushka, then by all means take the slow cooked method.
*Ring Ring*
“How’s it all taste my baby boy? I bet it’s just deeeeelicious!!!”
“Mom, I haven’t cooked it yet.”
“Oh, I just love and miss you! Bye!!!!
*Click*
I walked around Carlino’s seeking out the remainder of the ingredients. This is a huge task for me considering the quaint size and well organized shelves of the market. There is never any logistics or sequence to my shopping habits; I confusingly waddled from fore to aft of the store approximately several times. As my basket filled with the majority of the what was needed (Mushrooms of the Crimini, Shitake, and Oyster variety; stick of butter, garlic, shallots and a bottle of extra virgin olive oil), I zeroed in on the final requirement . . . chicken stock. Carefully setting down my overflowing red basket, I bent and began to reach for the chicken stock, when my concentration was broken by a soft, broken English voice.
“Ohhhhhhh, what ah ya gonna cook ah with that ah chicken stock???”
I slowly lifted myself from the squat position, and dramatically turned my head toward the direction of the question. As I put on my cliche talking to a stranger grin, my vision began to focus. And there she stood . . . all 4’10 of her. With a well fed physique, warm smile, askew make-up and a babushka resting atop her paper white curled hair. An actual elderly Italian woman . . . with a babushka!
I broke into a sweat. Here I stood in the presence of a cooking genius. She was the basis of comparison used on the side of every mass produced pasta box and tomato sauce can. A living legend of the basement kitchen, and certainly one that would slow cook her polenta over time. She was the type of woman who would add a little love with each hour she stirred the burning pot, nipping Sambuca from a flask, shaking a wooden spoon at all that dare cross her path in the heat of the moment.
She asked what I had in the basket and what I was making. I began to tell her the recipe and the inspiration, carefully dancing around my chosen method of preparation. This woman has endured years of cholesterol, cured meats, and about a bajillion grandchildren, yet I was convinced the discovery of the instant polenta in my basket would drop her dead right here before me.
But before I could stop her curious little hands from getting deeper in my basket, she wrapped her wrinkly fingers around the instant polenta and gasped in disbelief. I tried to shrug it off as mayhem combusted around me.
“Ya can’t a use the instant kind!!!! It’s not a good, spit, spit, spit!!!”
“I know, *nervous laugh* but I just don’t have the time ya see and . . .”
“I hope you’re not cooking for a girl, oh no no no. Oh I’d just diiiiiiie if ya feed this to my lovely granddaughters.”
She waved over her equally intimidating elderly friend, and before I could blink a clan of babushka adorned woman began to swarm around me.
They began to rabble in an unintelligable Italian dialect.
“Rabble Rabble Bippity Bippity!!!!!”
Chaos. I struggled to gather my belongings and escape. Their initial innocent canned pizza sauce looks turned into vicious rosary swinging glares.
“Ya can’t a use instant polenta, ya disgrace!!!! My lovely granddaughters would never eat that!!!!”
*Beep Beep*
*New Text: Mom*
“OMG how is it, hehehe. I luv you my little boy LOL bye -MOM :)”
. . . sigh . . . and the damn box said it would only take 3 minutes.
