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Title: Polenta in the Balkans
Categories: Info Corn Balkan Croatian Hungarian
Yield: 4 Servings
| Polenta | ||
| Cornmeal |
Grain-based porridges had been around since ancient times. However I assume that you are refering to corn (maize) meal based polenta. I do not know how it made its way to Italy, however it was introduced to the balkans via the Turks. In some places - Transylvania, among the Hungarians and Romanians, maize/corn is called "Turkish wheat". As far as I know, it was introduced to these regions by the 17th century (1600's). Corn has the advantage of giving a better yield and so became popular.
Perhaps the various names of the dish can give us some leads: In Romanian it is known as mamaliga, Hungarians puliszka, among Turks and Macedonians kaçamak. In Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia the names pura and palenta are used. In north-western Croatia and Slovenia the name is zgance (pronounced "zhgan-tse"). Of course, the most likely case is that pre-existing names for grain-porridge were simply used for the new dish. In Slovenia for example, there exists a dish called heldova zgance which is basically polenta made from buckwheat.