Polenta ‘Pizza’ With Pancetta and Spinach

Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times

Polenta "pizza" with pancetta and spinach.





pancetta
[pan-CHEH-tuh] An Italian bacon that is cured with salt and spices but not smoked. Flavorful, slightly salty pancetta comes in a sausagelike roll. It's used in Italian cooking to flavor sauces, pasta dishes, forcemeats, vegetables and meats. Pancetta can be tightly wrapped and refrigerated for up to 3 weeks, or frozen up to 6 months.

Polenta with sopressa and mushrooms. This polenta was made with yellow flour of Storo.

Polenta is a dish made from boiled cornmeal. Although the word is borrowed into English from Italian, the dish (under various names) is popular in Italian,Slovenian Žganci, Savoyard, Swiss, Austrian, Portuguese, Bosnian, Croatian (where it is called Palenta or, in Dalmatia, pura), Cuban, American, Hungarian (where it is called puliszka), , Serbian (kačamak in Serbian), Romanian (where it is called mămăligă), Bulgarian, Georgian, Corsican, Argentine, Uruguayan, Brazilian, Peruvian, Venezuelan, Haitian, Mexican and Turkish (typically from the Black Sea region, known as mamalika) cuisines, and it is a traditional staple food throughout much of Northern Italy.