“Polenta” is defined as “farina subtilissima.” (“The finest-ground flour.”)
I looked it up in my more normal classical Latin dictionary, which defines it as “barley meal,” “parched and crushed grain,” or (in the Bible, which was what the Anglo-Saxons wanted it for) as “parched grain.” Nowadays, of course, polenta is a corn/maize dish.
Anyway, it’s fun to meet up with cognates and earlier meanings for words.
