Banosh z brynzoiu

The story

Banosh is cornmeal cooked not in water but in sour cream, and it belongs to the Carpathian Mountains of western Ukraine, where it is part of Hutsul cooking and a signature dish of Zakarpattia. Across the border, Romanians make a related dish called balmus, and Polish cooks know it as banusz. Hutsul food rests on corn, potatoes, beans, mushrooms and bryndza, the local sheep's-milk cheese, and banosh brings two of them together. The classic version uses sour cream made from sheep's milk. Local tradition says men cook it, because work connected with sheep was men's work, and households kept an outdoor spot where it simmered in a cauldron over a fire. Folk rules hold that it must be stirred with a large wooden spoon and only in one direction, that the cornmeal should be very fine, and that the sour cream should be three days old and kept cool. Chef Ievgen Klopotenko recorded one version from a Hutsul woman who served it at a mountain pasture and measured by jars and by eye. It is served hot with crisp cracklings and crumbled bryndza, or with mushrooms. Because it sets as it cools, have the toppings ready and the plates warm before the cornmeal goes in.