I am once again stirring polenta on a ravishingly silent winter afternoon. I have learned many things over the course of the winters: to stir the polenta slowly, deeply and thoroughly with a long-handled wooden spoon; that polenta is so popular in Northern Italy that the southern Italians refer to their northern brethren as the Polentoni (polenta eaters); that those most resourceful Northern Italian people were making forms of polenta with chestnut flour or buckwheat long before corn arrived from the Americas and that the doyenne of Italian cooking, Marcella Hazan, still prefers some buckwheat in her porridge; that polenta can be served hot or cold, simply or luxuriously, for any meal of the day or evening. I have learned to start my polenta in cold water and let it come to a simmer while stirring with a wire whip. (Certainly you can add the cornmeal slowly, slowly, slowly to the boiling, salted water, in the more traditional manner, and Senora Hazan advises to “let it trickle through nearly closed fingers. You should be able to see some of the cornmeal’s individual grains spilling into the pot.” Cara Marcella!) Once the cornmeal is added, I whisk for two minutes and then switch to a long handled wooden spoon, with a very long handle if I am cooking a large batch. The porridge can splutter and occasionally you might risk a burn as some little golden volcanic eruption emerges from the depths of the pot. Use your heaviest pot, enameled if you have it, or my most purist readers might invest in a paiolo, a heavy copper pot expressly made for polenta. Use good quality unrefined cornmeal that has its bran and germ intact. Look for a speckled meal of medium or coarse grind, with granules about the consistency of (gasp) granulated sugar. Finely ground polenta gets a little gummy. Our bulk department has an excellent polenta that I use often, and specialty foods has an Italian import from Lombardy that I use if the Milanese are coming over. It’s made by the renowned Moretti family, who have been growing corn and drying it in their airy, ventilated barns since 1922. It cooks up luscious and creamy and, well, corny. Remember that imported polenta that comes in clever cloth bags is attractive to both humans and insects, so be careful with those. Moretti’s is sealed judiciously.

Some people enrich the cooking water with milk, or cook their cornmeal in milk alone. We prefer the leaner all-water version and an optional, luxurious topping. As always, to each his own. Those milkier versions are nice served for breakfast, in white bowls, with maple syrup.

On this peaceful afternoon I do not stir the polenta constantly, nor always in the same direction, as ritual, purism or emotion may dictate. Once the cornmeal, good quality spring water and pinch of sea salt have started to thicken and I have switched to my spoon, I lower the heat to medium low and cover the pot, and stir every ten minutes, thoroughly, for a minute or so, recovering the pot after each stir. It takes about forty minutes or four big stirs. You add your cornmeal slowly, or start it in cold water, and stir every ten minutes, or perpetually, because you want to avoid lumps. There is a culinary fanaticism about lumps but, believe me, the world will continue to spin on its axis if your polenta has a little lump or two. Do your best. Cook the polenta until it loses its raw, floury taste and becomes soft and custardy-- start tasting after twenty minutes or so. Beware recipes that advise cooking until the polenta “leaves the sides of the pan”—in my experience, that can happen in a mere ten or fifteen minutes, and the polenta is by no means ready that quickly.

This afternoon, after the second stir, I put on the “You Won’t Forget Me” album by Shirley Horn, the one with “ tempos that move as slowly as fog on a windless night.”  I decide to stir constantly, the way you really should, or if you are in love, or remember being so, or if you have no where, really, that you would rather be. Shirley can swing you so hard one moment, and in the very next tune, wrenchingly summon up every lonely, or lovely, winter afternoon. Here in the country, all is enveloped in snow and silence. Only Shirley’s impossible harmonies and the thickening yellow, and the perfect icicles along the porch eaves... 

The only movements outside are the blue jays darting around the birch trees in the back yard and the chickadees playing in the sleeping grapevines near the porch. The polenta thickens and is the most gorgeous yellow. You could serve it steaming and soft with a bit of butter and grated parmesan; with gorgonzola and toasted walnuts; with sautéed garlicky greens; with olive oil and fresh herbs; in a ramekin with a surprise layer of mascarpone or ricotta buried underneath; with a fancy ragout of wild and tame mushrooms; with frugal resourcefulness or with grilled duck sausages and morels. You see, as you stir, how the Italians have taken another New World foodstuff and made it transcendent.

I can remember stirring my first polenta on a similar endless winter afternoon twenty years ago. Back Bay was frigid, and the windows in the largely empty third floor apartment rattled all night long in the wind. Learning to cook frugally was more an imperative than a predilection. For sure. Of course I had the no-lump fanaticism, and I know that I stirred constantly, thoroughly, and in one direction. I remember topping it with the “Sicilian” wilted spinach that I made all the time back then. (That’s merely olive oil and sliced garlic and a little crushed red pepper in a scathingly hot iron frying pan dramatized with the sudden violent spatter of the still-wet spinach hitting the oil…. the instant wilting…. the wonderful aroma that will hang in the apartment for days afterward, pleasingly…) There was probably Ravel or Mahler, or maybe Aretha, and there was reason, then, to stir constantly…. And suddenly, right outside the drafty living room window, the fleeting perception of a flock of pigeons swirling and swooping inexplicably, as they do, in the frigid silver sky. Dinner was deepest green on brilliant gold in a chipped white ironstone bowl, with myriad reasons to stir constantly.

Polenta may be served steamy and voluptuous in a bowl or spread out on a platter or board and spread with a hot tomato sauce and grated cheese. (Try some of our Piave or Montasio for a change and a kick). If you have the family home or are entertaining low-maintenance friends, put the board in the middle of the table and just have big green salad alongside. Elizabeth David eloquently intones in her A Book of Mediterranean Food , “Whatever is left over is trimmed into squares about the size of a piece of toast, and grilled over a very slow charcoal fire: the top crust of sauce and cheese remains undisturbed and the under side, being nearest the heat, is deliciously browned.”  The porridge can be spread out, as I often do, in an oiled Pyrex dish to cool and firm- spread it about three quarters of an inch thick. This you can chill for up to three days, and then enjoy your cornmeal in another form entirely. You can cut it into squares, diamonds, triangles or circles (with your cookie cutter), which is wasteful but fun. Then you can broil, fry or grill it until its edges are deep gold and crusty. You could also cut it horizontally and layer it with tomato sauce and cheese and maybe mushrooms and  then bake it in a hot oven until bubbly. You can also dip it into egg wash and then bread crumbs and sauté it, making a polenta “cutlet” that is luscious under a mushroom cream sauce or wild mushroom ragout. Tomorrow I will probably sauté some of Gayle’s lacinata kale with EVOO and shallots and spread these over my polenta base, then shred some Fontina over it and bake in a very hot oven ‘til it sizzles.

But this afternoon, there is no need for any embellishment, and I merely add what they used to call a “knob” of butter and a small hillock of grana padano, in deference to the Polentoni. The polenta loosens and becomes softly luxuriant, and it is ready. Miss Horne does one of her most languorous and beloved numbers, “If You Go”, all nuance and longing, not unlike the seamless twilight, as it descends in its spectrum of silvers and grays. The chickadees depart for their beds up in the woods, the lights come on in the houses down the road, and the polenta is ready for its blue bowl and its black pepper. I am, of course, only listening to recorded music and cooking cornmeal on a cold winter day. I guess you learn, over the course of the winters, how to find your raptures - your reasons for stirring constantly, thoroughly and deeply.