Risotto is rice that tried really hard. It is creamy, tender-firm, delicious, versatile......
(You can make an excellent Risotto in a pressure cooker!)
Polenta is cornmeal mush all grown up and moved to a (much) better neighbourhood. I like to make mine with good quality chicken broth and lots of butter and garlic.
What a great way to share gifts thru these wonderful dishes.
Very well stated.
You get a Gold star and move to the head of the class....and, stay on the soapbox and give us the rest of your speech............
Yeah, I don't know much about food outside of cajun. Stuff that everyone else knows, I'm like "what's that?". It's like going somewhere and I"m scratching my head because there's not a grain of rice to be found. So where's the rice? "you don't eat rice like that, it's not good for you". So what am I gonna use to sop up the gravy (and don't say 'the biscuits') lol. I'm glad the Mexicans have alot of rice too. That rice and beans and whatever it was I ate in El Campo was good.
I think it is so funny that these dishes are considered gourmet dishes and are featured in Food and Wine magazine and all of the Food Network chefs treat these as if they are rare, exotic dishes. These were peasant foods!!! They were staples that were always kept on hand. There was always cornmeal and rice in the pantry. My grandfather and his 11 brothers and sisters lived on these foods, growing up poor, on the farm.
Perhaps I will make grilled polenta with roasted garlic oil for the wash-in! That is if any of you want peasant food
Polenta and risotto and pasta aglia olio and tripe were the food of the poorest of the poor. Amazing how you find it in fine shee-shee restaurants nowadays. I can still see my grandfather chowing down his polenta and crusty bread. He had no teeth, and his chin would touch his nose with every bite. Gums of steel. Us kids would sit there and laugh our asses off. Did anybody ever have gizzards and chicken feet in the sauce?
Bobby in Boston
I don't remember gizzards but my great grandmother would use rabbit, frog and YES chicken legs!! I can remember her sucking on those damn chicken legs and thinking that it was so disgusting. She NEVER told anybody that what she used was chicken (when she used other things like frog, rabitt...etc) you just sit down, shut up and eat!