On the streets
For the sake of curiosity, I looked into the “Book about tasty and healthy food” of those years – which, I think, was offered to people about corn? It turned out that there were a dozen or two dishes, all either with butter, or with sour cream, either boiled or baked. Of these, the most spectacular are deep-fried corn croquettes and unsweetened soufflé. And the most amazing thing is that she is portrayed as a very isolated vegetable – she is not friends with anyone. So, of course, not for long and get bored.
Corn – the simplest, rustic roots. It can be found on the streets in many countries. We have corn sell freshly boiled, with a pinch of salt in the bargain. Everyone else has their own traditions on this topic.
In India, at every intersection, there are guys with mobile grills – on them, sometimes to a black crust, the cobs are fried. They are coated with a spicy masala mixture and poured over with juice.
In China, passers-by on the streets stop to eat a scalding corn soup with chicken – and run on, as if refueling.
In the multimillion-dollar Sao Paulo, itinerant traders sell mouth-watering “envelopes” – until you try, you will never guess that they are made from corn leaves: they are stuffed with a sweet paste made from grains with milk and a small amount of oil, then expertly wrapped and kept in an antediluvian double boiler.
Corn is considered one of the pillars “Mediterranean diet“- considered by many to be the healthiest diet in the world. As they say, look at these southern Italian peasants who live up to a hundred years and eat only the most delicious! On Sophia Loren with her shapes and love of pasta! So here is the corn in the company pastes, cheeses, olive oil and red wine – These are starch, fiber, B vitamins, unsaturated fatty acids, which regulate blood cholesterol levels, and phosphatides, which stimulate some brain functions. And whoever came up with cornflakes – cornflakes with milk for breakfast – was certainly thinking about people. Personally, I always felt something of American fast food in these cereals, and if not for my Georgian friend Lida, I would not have seen corn in the morning. She lives next door, so we have breakfast together from time to time. Lida cooks mamalygu, a simple cornmeal porridge, hides slices of suluguni in it, and they melt as we talk.
In the fields
The Mexican state of Oaxaca is called the “Treasury of Corn”. Local peasants claim that this “Indian wheat” appeared here.
In any case, it has been cultivated in these places for thousands of years. Among one hundred and fifty types of corn, there are sweet milk corn (well known to us), and white (it is less yellow, softer, juicier and sweeter), and the rarest blue. On large panels spread out on the ground, farmers dry out multi-colored grains – the cobs of blue corn seem to be charred, and if you look closely, you can see that the grains in one cob are cast in different shades of blue, from bluish to purple and blue-black.
I heard about Oaxaca for the first time not for the most pleasant reason, namely in connection with Monsanto, a giant American corporation that produces genetically modified foods and seeds. In Oaxaca, the peasants said, they never bought seeds – every year they select the best from their harvest, carefully store them and so pass them on from generation to generation. In the United States, most of the corn grown has already been modified (eh, these endless fields, where there is always a tin box on the side of the road, where you throw a few coins when you suddenly wanted to pick a couple of ears), so scientists came from California to Mexico to compare the infected with an artificial gene strain with natural. It is impossible to convey how unpleasantly they were amazed when it turned out that in this corn paradise, where it is necessary to get there by the cross-over for several days, the “genes” of “Monsanto” are already present. They got here by air (corn is pollinated by the wind) and, settling on the plantation randomly and uncontrollably, created monstrous creatures, with whole “branches” of cobs and ugly flowers.
On an italian plate
Natural corn is doing better in Europe. I personally know one field where not a single alien gene has flown for sure. It is located in the middle of the medieval city of Vicenza – naturally in the middle of the city, in a place where there could be a square or a pond. Every day I rode my bike past this field, and every day I was given a barbecue for lunch. polenta.
In the Italian province of Veneto, corn casserole every day is normal. One old man told me that polenta was called “the meat of the poor” – for Italians in the XNUMXth century, it was a real symbol of poverty. Well, what about the inhabitants of Veneto say polentoni, “polenta eaters”, I already knew.
Polenta from day to day for a whole month is really quite tiring, but it was cooked with tomatoes and porcini mushrooms, with saffron and, of course, with parmesan, served wrapped in prosciutto and grilled, with aromatic offal, with pesto, with gorgonzola and walnuts… I heard from collectors of folk recipes that higher up in the mountains, the Italians-northerners greatly respected polenta with snails. Encyclopedias here suggest that polenta is the same hominy, but thanks to the Italians’ innate sense of style, it sometimes turns into a real work of art. And then it can be “given” in restaurants for a lot of money.
We also cooked in Vicenza a cold appetizer with corn – savory a la Sicilian cannellonistuffed with spiced ricotta (nutmeg, pepper, caraway seeds) and corn. For this, lasagna sheets were boiled separately, greased with olive oil, and in them, like in tubes, we wrapped the filling.
Or they also made a corn casserole: fried onion and pepper с garlic together with corn was chopped in a blender, mixed with egg and a few spoons flour and baked.
In an Asian pan
And yet, when it comes to creative recipes with corn, I would give the palm to Asians. There is nothing complicated here, you just need to be the proud owner of a wok. Fry everything at hand over high heat in a matter of minutes: sprouts asparagus, carrot с gingerpieces marinated in honey chicken – young and delicate corn will fit into any mix. And in any stew – here, for example, Singaporean (aka Malay) laxa. Fry for a few minutes, sprinkling with soy sauce over pak choy cabbage leaves. Put them in a separate bowl, and put carrots, corn and mushrooms in the pan. shiitake… After a few seconds add curry, after a few more seconds, pour in the vegetable broth and coconut milk… Add garlic, ginger and lemongrass. When the soup boils, toss in the noodles, stir, then thinly sliced zucchini and wait about five minutes when everything is ready. When serving, you just need to add soy sauce to taste, decorate with fresh herbs cilantro and put a pile of fried pak-choy on top of the soup.
Piping hot
Corn baked goods are found in almost all cuisines of the world: from the simplest Georgian mchadi and Mexican tortilla (they are eaten with sauces, chili, cheese) to corn muffins with pumpkin and cheddar, pies with a crispy crust.
Here’s just one simple recipe: In a bowl, mix half a cup of melted butter and sugar to taste, beat with two egg yolks. In another bowl, beat the whites separately. Add a glass of flour with three teaspoons of baking powder to the butter, then a glass of warm milk. Finally, stir in a glass of yellow cornmeal into the dough and then gently add the whipped egg whites. Pour into a baking dish and bake until golden brown. Hot cake is so aromatic that it is better than any cake.
All the recipes for dizzying corn sweets seem extremely simple to me. Sometimes the result and the process are even difficult to compare. I recently visited the Brazilian state of Bahia. Breakfast in the pusada they served luxurious, the tables were full of quiche, puddings and juices. But somehow I opened a jar on the shelf and pulled out a homemade translucent печенье in the form of fingers. After a few seconds, I realized that this is the most delicious cookie in my life. I tracked down the cook and demanded a recipe – she looked surprised, shrugged her shoulders. Three equal parts – flour, corn and coconut. Butter. A little sugar … Probably, this is how it is, the real taste of corn, which, due to a misunderstanding, did not take root in our country.