Special with cornmeal

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Most of us know cornmeal as the main component of corn bread and as a grain that can be cooked as porridge for a hot breakfast cereal. Yet cornmeal has countless other uses.

As a coating, it adds crunch to fried foods and thus is a popular breading element for fried fish in the South. Bakers mix cornmeal with other grains to give texture to yeast breads, to contribute crispness to biscotti and to lend flavor to cakes.

Cornmeal is ground dried corn. It can be white, yellow, blue or red, depending on the color of the corn used, and can be ground coarse, medium or fine. Coarse cornmeal takes longer to cook than fine and needs more liquid. Unlike corn on the cob, cornmeal is not particularly sweet because it's made from a different variety of corn.

Grits are made of white or yellow cornmeal, usually coarse, but also available finely ground. Grits also is the name of the mush made from the dried meal. A favorite in the South, grits can be delicious, like the buttery version I ate at Commander's Palace in New Orleans, which was as enticing as the tender veal it accompanied.

According to Betty Fussell, author of "Crazy for Corn" (Perennial), grits originally were made from ground hominy but today come from ordinary cornmeal. Hominy, she said, is "dried whole corn kernels boiled with some form of alkali (lye from wood ash or lime slaked from limestone) to remove the kernels' tough outer skin." This technique was developed by ancient American Indians. In Mexico, hominy is ground to make masa, the dough for corn tortillas and tamales, and also for masa harina, a finely ground corn flour.

With such long experience with cornmeal, it's not surprising that cooks in the Americas have developed numerous uses for it. Salvadoran cooks love pupusas, which resemble thick corn tortillas that sometimes enclose cheese, meat or vegetable fillings but also sometimes are pan-grilled. Similarly, in Venezuela and Colombia, arepas are flat corn cakes that are split after being cooked and are stuffed with cheese or other fillings. In Mexico, cornmeal is even presented in sweet hot drinks called atole.

From its American origin, cornmeal traveled around the world, thanks originally to Spanish explorers who carried corn to Europe. At the time, it was called maize, based on the Spanish word for the grain, and this term is still used for corn by the British and some other Europeans.

Polenta is basically the same thing as cornmeal or grits, although experts can argue that certain Italian corn varieties produce the best polenta. Like the term grits, polenta refers to both the dried grain and the dish made from it. As with grits, many prefer coarsely ground meal for making polenta, but polenta also is available in medium and fine grind and as instant polenta. You also can buy refrigerated cooked polenta in log shapes, ready to be sliced and sauteed or baked.

When I visited Val d'Aosta in northern Italy, I loved the rich polenta pasticciata. To make it, polenta is layered with Fontina cheese and butter. Some recipes are simple, such as browned polenta slices topped with well-browned onions or polenta mixed with mashed potatoes -- both specialties of Friuli in the northeast. Italians also turn cornmeal into crunchy crust for fruit tarts and pair it with ground almonds to make rich poundcakes.

Less familiar outside its Romanian home is mamaliga, a form of cornmeal mush that is a staple national food of the Romanian people. Mornings begin with cooled, sliced cornmeal mush, which also is served with meat stews, soups, sauerkraut, heavy cream or sour cream.