The market · Grains and flours · The Americas, Southern Europe, East Asia

Cornmeal

Dried, ground maize — coarse or fine, yellow or white. For cornbread, jianbing, hushpuppies and Jamaican festival, and as polenta's coarser cousin.

sweet · corny · gritty

What to do with it

Classics built on it

ShandongShandong jianbingA paper-thin sheet of millet, corn or wheat batter, cooked dry and crisp on a wide iron griddle, and rolled around a whole spring onion and sweet bean sauce.No one here has made it yet Creole and CajunPo'boyA long New Orleans loaf — crackly crust, feather-light inside — filled with fried prawns or oysters, or roast beef in gravy.No one here has made it yet JamaicanFestivalA sweet, fried cornmeal dumpling, crisp outside and soft inside, served beside jerk and fried fish.No one here has made it yet

Goes with

butterbuttermilkeggcheese

Knowing it

Where to buy: Stone-ground keeps more flavour but goes stale faster; store it in the fridge.
Worth knowing: Masa harina is different: it's made from corn treated with lime, and won't behave the same.

Kitchens that keep it in

Galicia — Spain's green, rainy north-west corner, on the Atlantic above PortugalGalicianSpain's great seafood coast — octopus, mussels, scallops and barnacles — with a green, rainy inland of pork, turnip tops, soft cows' milk cheeses and pies baked to share.6 classics Asturias — the green mountains and coast of northern Spain, on the Bay of BiscayAsturianA kitchen of rain and mountains: big white beans stewed with smoked sausage, milk and blue cheese, fish from the Cantabrian Sea, and cider poured from a height.7 classics

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