Terminology around foods across languages and cultures is so confusing.

In Canada, no one would know what you meant if you said “farina” which is, apparently, the English term for what I have only ever called Cream of Wheat, which is a brand name. It’s the same coarseness as what is called semolina, and I often wondered about the difference. I gather from various sources that the difference is the variety of wheat, with semolina being yellow and made from hard wheat and farina is white and made from soft wheat.

I’ve never understood how you would possibly make pasta with such a coarse flour, so I’ve never even tried to use semolina for that. I’ve always used regular all-purpose flour for making pasta and assumed this made me some kind of fraud, cheater, or just plain idiot. I was therefore happy to discover flour labelled “Farina di grano duro – ideale per pasta e pane” that was much finer ground than the semolina I’d bought in the past. In this case, “farina” is just the Italian word for flour, and this particular one is a finer grind than the semolina of the same brand.

To add to this confusion, it turns out that the term semolina can also refer to other grains than wheat, where the common factor is that it refers to a coarse grind. Though if that grain is corn, then in the US its called grits. Unless you call it cornmeal. And cornmeal is also just polenta. If you grind cornmeal fine, you call it corn flour, which is what you use in tortillas and pupusas.

I have some semolina in my pantry labelled “coarse semolina”. I have no idea whether this means its more coarse than usual, and if so, does that mean there is a range of grinds you can call semolina, and where are the boundaries with bulgur at one end and simply flour at the other? In any case, it is yellow and the coarseness of what I know as cornmeal.

Dish #50: Not-cornbread

I invited Michele and Brooke over to for the second round of chipotle-glazed ribs. Last time I made coleslaw to accompany them, but this time I decide to make cornbread.

“i looooove corn bread!” was Michele’s reaction when I told her.

Fast forward to the moments before the meal, with the ribs in the oven.

I lifted the lid from the skillet cornbread that had been slow cooking like a giant pancake on the stove top. I’d prepared it as outlined in The Joy of Cooking. We ooo’d and aah’d at its springy bounce. We delighted that it slid so effortlessly out of the pan and onto a plate.

Michele asked me where I got cornmeal, and I explained that I had bought it at an Indian grocery. I stumbled over the word “semolina” a few times trying to say it.

“I thought semolina was wheat,” she said.

I stared at the cornbread. I looked back at her.

“So … this isn’t cornbread,” I said. Then we laughed our guts out.

We all agreed that it was a very convincing and very good not-cornbread and that if we hadn’t talked about it, we might not have even realized it wasn’t made with any corn. The lesson learned is that coarse semolina works as a substitute for cornmeal.

Skillet Cornbread from The Joy of Cooking

Preheat a heavy 10-inch skillet (that you have a lid for) over medium-high heat.

Whisk together in a large bowl:

• 1¼ cups of cornmeal (or coarse semolina!)
• ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• 2½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¾ teaspoons salt

Add:

• 1 or 2 large eggs, beaten (I used 2 medium)
• 2 or 3 tablespoons melted butter, bacon drippings, or vegetable oil (I used 3 tablespoons vegetable oil)
• 1 cup whole milk

Combine with a few rapid strokes. Add to the preheated skillet:

• 2 tablespoons butter, bacon fat, lard, oil or vegetable shortening (I used vegetable oil. I would not use butter, since it would burn. If I had ghee, I’d use that)

Quickly swirl the fat to coat the pan, and immediately pour in the batter. Reduce to very low heat and cook, covered, for about 20 minutes.

Dish #51: Chipotle-glazed pork ribs, again

This hardly counts as another dish, since I was using the second half of the glaze I made for the earlier batch. Anyway, they were good, again.

Dish #52: Homemade ravioli with quail egg yolks and blood sausage

I’ve been reading The Flavour Thesaurus on and off. In it, the author describes a ravioli where each one is made with a single egg yolk and slice of blood sausage. As a fun project, I decided to try it.

I made a two poor decisions:

1. I decided to use quail eggs, which I realize now are too small to stay soft in the centre while the pasta itself was cooking. But they are so cute!
2. I didn’t add oil to the pasta dough when I was kneading it even though I thought it seemed a bit dry.

As a result, although the ravioli was tasty, the yolks were more cooked than I’d hoped, and the pasta was tough. Maybe I only needed to cook the ravioli longer, but then the yolks would have been way overdone. If I were to make this flavour combo again, I’d cut the pasta into fettuccine and make a carbonara, with pieces of warmed blood sausages.

Bonus dish: Weizengrieß with raspberries

“Weizengrieß” is the German word for farina. We always keep it stocked, so I consider it a stable in the pantry along with regular flour, sugar, and such things. Fronx and I make it as a comforting breakfast. We like it with fruit from a jar and cold milk.

Tally

Items used up: one (cider vinegar, though I already bought more to replace it)
Items added: one (Italian durum wheat flour)
Items partly used: five
Items used from the “Just use already” category: none