miltonkeynesmum,
Try as you must, your cornmeal (or polenta will never turn into masa or masa harina).
You would be smart to make a porridge, or add this wet cornmeal to a soup, sauce or other dish.
Masa harina
http://www.coolchile.co.uk/Merchant2...ory_Code=StCup http://www.fronterakitchens.com/cook...ntry_masa.html is corn flour that is mixed with slaked lime.
Other than the commercial masa, you can also make an organic masa by first making nixtamal
http://www.gourmetsleuth.com/masanixtamal.htm which is made by cooking white (dent) corn in water with (the alkalizing agent) lime, wood ashes (free of paint, chemicals, etc), or ground sea shells, and in the process the hard corn skins are removed.
Though the hard skins contains many nutrients including niacin, many of the nutrients including niacin, calcium, and magnesium as well as some lysine are replaced by the use of the alkalizing agent. Wood ash apparently produces more protein in the corn.
After the nixtamal is made, it is ground to make masa or posole (or pozole) or hominy
http://www.sallys-place.com/food/col...ell/hominy.htm
My guess is that, besides at the American Embassy, you don't have any clusters of Americans in a town or neighborhood to warrant have American food restaurants to eat at, so you might have very few Mexican or Mesoamerican restaurants to go to, to sample tortillas, sopas, chalupas, tiacoyos, gorditas, picadas, papatzules, taquitos, tostadas, enchiladas, enfrijoladas, chilaquiles, and tamales.
Also, my guess is that your local macrobiotic group is probably not large enough to support an organic masa production facility, so you might be interested in making your own for personal use.
I might be able to get Ignacio and Lorretto Beaumonte Wayas (located in Ensenada, Mexico) permission to put their
Man of Corn cookbook, online (or if not that, make the cookbook available to persons who wish to own a copy), so all of us can benefit from the inclusion of macrobiotic mesoamerican cooking and foods in our varied diets.
Thank you, very much.
Bruce Paine