Türkensterz (Carinthian Cornmeal Sterz)

The first time I ate Türkensterz was on one of those childhood trips to Austria with Gretel and my grandmother Eva. We were somewhere in Carinthia, south of the Tauern, at a Gasthaus where the menu was handwritten and the cook came out to see if you'd finished your plate. They brought a shallow bowl of golden crumbles with a dish of sour cream and a small pot of strong black coffee on the side. I didn't know what I was looking at. Gretel told me to eat it and stop asking questions.

Türkensterz is cornmeal, cooked and crumbled and roasted in butter until it turns into something between porridge and breadcrumbs. The word Türken comes from Türkischer Weizen, which is what Austrians called maize when it first arrived from the New World. Carinthians took to it the way they take to anything practical: they made it into Sterz, which is the southern Austrian family of crumbled grain dishes that kept farming families fed through long winters on almost nothing. Cornmeal, water, salt, butter. That's the ingredient list. The technique is everything.

You cook the cornmeal in salted water until it sets into a firm mass, then you break it apart with a fork and roast the crumbles in hot butter until the edges turn golden and crisp. The smell fills the kitchen: toasted corn, browning butter, something almost nutty. It's not polenta, and I need you to understand that before you start. Polenta is smooth and creamy and wants to be stirred. Sterz wants to be left alone, broken up, and roasted dry. The texture is coarse, crumbly, with crisp edges and a tender center in each piece. Carinthians eat it with Grammeln (pork cracklings), with Sauerrahm (sour cream), or, and this is the part that surprises people, with a cup of strong black coffee poured right over the top.

This is good Austrian home cooking. Four ingredients, twenty minutes, and the kind of satisfaction that only comes from food that was invented by people who needed to make something wonderful out of almost nothing.