The text below was born because of an argument I had with a friend. Everything started from the point where I told that polenta is not a Romanian tradition. Before you say anything, approve my friend’s opinion or call me an ignorant, please read the arguments below. The will enlighten you.

Maize, the cereal responsible for polenta, comes from America. For those who haven’t’ skipped the 6th grade geography and history class , will be easy to remember that along with the century of great geographical discoveries in Europe came a series of new plants, vegetables and herbs. One of those new stuff is corn also, the magical cereal.  This happened between 15th and 16th century. At the same time in our little part of world (I remind you a few historical details, so you could understand what time are we talking about) Stephan the Great was trying to chase away the Turkish.

Few years later, sometime between 1740, Pietro Longhi was painting oil pictures. Nothing unusual until now. You may say there were a lot of painters and paintings in those times. But what really interests us is a certain painting and a certain thing from that picture. The pictures shows four peasants gathered around a table. One of them, a woman, pours from a caldron, on a plate a certain golden yellow thing. That certain yellow thing is nothing else but polenta.  Here you have the proof. And another thing: this Pietro Longhi guy is Italian, not Romanian.

It’s disappointing, but it is real. But still, that’s not my point. I don’t want to prove how much we are mistaken when we say that polenta is one of our traditions. What makes polenta different from the Italians or Bulgarians is the way we make it and with what we eat it. And so I would like to remind you some of our specialties: polenta with cheese, polenta with plum jam and polenta with salad sour soup   and bortsch.it makes me hungry only mentioning them.

As for the fight with my friend I can only say that we’ve made pace by eating a good fresh polenta. Cut into pieces with thread, just as only we Romanians use to do. Quod erat demonstrandum.