SUNSHINE ON THE TABLE

Description

Polenta is eaten throughout the Veneto region, but the Belluno version is the simplest, the most rural and perhaps the most genuine of them all.

The traditional polenta, which used to be eaten in every household, is mixed for a long time and cooked in a special kind of pot called a paiolo until it begins to harden, and then the fragrant, steaming-hot finished product is tipped out in one resolute flick of the wrist onto a board on the table. Polenta is an indispensable accompaniment for all kinds of tocio (sauce) made with chicken, rabbit or veal; every type of pastizada or carne in tecia (meat stew); game meat in salmì; meats cooked on the spit; lamb and kid, traditionally eaten at Easter; mixed varieties of mushrooms; snails cooked with celery; baccalà alla vicentina (Vicenza style cod); malga cheese, schiz and fried cheese and slices of sopressa or grilled sausages. And once the freshly-cooked polenta becomes cold it can be given a new lease of life by cutting it into slices which are then grilled or browned in the pan with a little butter and become the delicious, crisp polenta brustolada. Maize from America was first introduced into the Veneto in the early 16th century, and it spread throughout the region, especially among the country folk, becoming the staple, sometimes almost exclusive, diet of the local people by the 18th century. In the Belluno area maize replaced other cereals such as buckwheat, spelt and sorghum, which had been used since time immemorial to make more primitive versions of polenta.

Even today in the north of the Agordino area, the Ampezzano area and the Cadore, and particularly in the mountain refuges, a little buckwheat is added to the maize to make a whiter, grainier variety of polenta with a more bitter, old-style flavour. In days gone by, and now all but forgotten, polenta was often eaten with milk for breakfast or even as a simple evening meal, particularly suitable for children and the elderly.

Patugoi, pape, cavernola, dufeta, and pestariei are all local variants of milk fresh from the milking shed with polenta crumbled into it, or polentina calda, or polenta flour cooked in milk. These are extremely simple dishes, but the flavour can be varied surprisingly easily by adding fresh or melted butter, grated smoked ricotta or aromatic herbs and spices, and it is a great pity that “progress” and modernity have all but wiped them off today’s menus.

an alternative

One of the cereals which used to be grown in theprovince of Belluno until the 1950s was barley, and recently farmers have begun growing it again. It is used as a valid substitute for coffee, but is most commonly found as an ingredient of tasty, nutritious soups generally eaten in the evening. The soups are prepared with vegetables (carrots, potatoes, celery and onions) and a handful of barley per person and a little pig rind, or these days also little cubes of speck, are added to give it a fuller flavour. In some restaurants you can also try excellent “orzotto” dishes, similar to risotto but with barley instead of rice, cooked with vegetables or wild herbs.

for the curious...

The most common types of maize found in the province of Belluno were marano (originally from Vicenza and often called merano), fiorentino, ungherese and a particularly interesting variety known as spóncio or spinoso, from a plant with long, narrow cobs and orange, “beak shaped” grains. Today, thanks to the re-discovery and re-valuing of this variety, you can also buy spóncio maize flour, which makes excellent polenta.

Information

“La Fiorita” Farming Co-operative
Via Nazionale - Busche di Cesiomaggiore
Tel. 320 6036403
www.sponcio.it
coopfiorita@libero.it