Cornmeal

About cornmeal
Coarse whole-grain corn flour is usually called corn meal. Corn, wheat, oats, buckwheat, rye, barley and rice are all grown in Romania but nothing exceeds cornmeal in popularity. From this is made mamaliga. This Romanian food's versatility equals the pasta, rice or potato staples of other peoples, and even the most affluent Romanian succumbs at least occasionally to a meal based on mamaliga. This is not difficult to enjoy, for mamaliga in its bland sweetness seems the perfect foil for meats and gravies, cottage cheese, yogurt, butter or sour cream, various vegetable sauces or simply a mound of browned mushrooms or onions. Cold, it can be sliced into wedges and eaten as a bread or sliced thinly and dipped in egg and breaded and fried in squares, layered into vegetable and/or meat casseroles, or served in the bottom of a soup plate. Sometimes mamaliga is the companion to fried or scrambled eggs, or even just sauerkraut or pickles. With mamaliga who can be hungry?