Cornmeal Mush? Porridge? Or Is That Polenta?

According to google search, it seems that cooked(boiled) cornmeal can and is sometimes called, Mush, Porridge or Polenta and seems to all be cooked and served much the same way.

Leftover mush can be fried golden brown in a tiny bit of bacon(fat) grease and covered with chili, meat stew or sometimes pinto beans.

Adding sliced jalapeno pepper or adding ‘some’ creamed corn while cooking the mush gives it a different dimension.

1 cup cornmeal
4 cups water OR 2 cups water and 2 cups milk
Bring water to a boil stir in cornmeal. A whisk works better than a spoon.
Move pan to a warm burner, continue stirring until thick and smooth.
Cover pan. Stir well every 10 minutes.
Cook for 40 – 45 minutes. Longer if mush is watery.
Serve hot.

Put leftover mush in a pie pan. When cool cut into chunks.
Fry and serve with beans, stew, soup, greens or chili.

All went well except I think my burner was a bit hot or I need a tiny bit more water.
At 30 minutes it was getting dry and sticking to my enamel coated pot.
I added a few tablespoons of milk and a pat of butter, stirred well and cooked another 15 minutes.

My version did have 1 jalapeno pepper added and was served with bacon and fried eggs.

Overall it was easy to make. Long low temperature cooking time. Leftover mush will be pan fried and served with a spiced Gumbo rice mix and red beans.

Country life is a good life.

Happy Fall gardening

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11 responses to “Cornmeal Mush? Porridge? Or Is That Polenta?

  1. Where I grew up cornmeal mush was our favorite breakfast. My mom cooked it hot and thick in the morning and served it in a bowl with milk and honey poured over the top. We stirred it up and ate it as cereal with buttered toast. My mom baked white bread for our morning toast. You made polenta, it sounds like.

    We lived in the backwoods of Oregon at the time, but my mom’s folks were from Kentucky.

    I still make cornmeal mush on cold winter mornings and I still eat it with milk and honey… and home baked bread.

    Later I add the leftover mush to my white bread recipe, add 2 eggs, and make a delicious cornmeal yeast bread. Yum.

    A such as I still love cornmeal mush… cornmeal yeast bread is pale yellow and wonderful.

    Liked by 1 person

    • That adding leftovers to yeast bread is a great idea.
      Thanks

      In my area of Texas, at the end of the ‘Great Depression’ era and the end of WWII food rationing, more often than not we had coarse ground wheat mush. Common store brands were, Cream of Wheat and Malt-O-Meal.

      Happy Gardening

      Liked by 1 person

      • We also had Cream of Wheat. We had a dozen chickens and mom traded eggs for fresh milk from a friend’s cow. It was the milk we used on that cereal. There are occasional cows
        here, but 11 years of drought had
        people let go of horses and cattle
        both, they could not feed them. It
        rained this year. A good year to start
        deep rooted trees and shrubs.
        I add many types of leftovers to bread. I make Posole with hominy and NM red chile. When the meat is gone, I boil a pot of beans and put them in the leftover Posole pot. Life is good.

        Like

        • Sad Smile.. yes and when the rains return it takes years for the pastures, fields to recover and for families to rebuild their livestock and herds and poultry flocks.
          Happy Gardening

          Like

  2. We eat what is called scraple I think it is from the Amish country of Pennsylvanian…. you take the left over mush and add in bacon bits or sausage scraps or any old meat scraps and let it sit in the fridge over night in a loaf pan until set and then cut into slices and fry in bacon grease and eat for breakfast like bacon or sausage. My husband and I love it… would rather have it then bacon or sausage alone.!

    Liked by 1 person

  3. Isn’t this called “Grits” as well?

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Polenta sounds more chic. To Italians, pokenta is a poor man food. But hey that is cusine.

    Liked by 1 person

    • Grin.. as of the past few years, younger folk are ‘rediscovering’ old foods.
      All that was old is new Again.
      Many so called poor man’s foods are appearing on 5 star restaurant menus.
      Happy Gardening

      Like

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