Cornmeal treat has a pleasing history

A dropped biscuit dough on a fruit cobbler is easier to assemble than a pie, and you get many of the same benefits, including moist and richly flavored fruit under a crisp protective crust.

Icarus pastry chef James Condon's cobbler covers a filling of ripe peaches and blueberries with a dough made with white cornmeal. The grain, a traditional ingredient from Rhode Island and historically known as ``Johnnycake cornmeal," adds a subtle corn flavor and delicate grittiness. (Johnnycakes are essentially cornmeal pancakes.) Chef-owner Chris Douglass, says Condon, emphasizes seasonal and local foods.

Condon, who grew up in southeastern Massachusetts, was inspired by a cobbler recipe from Johanne Killeen of Providence's Al Forno restaurant that appeared in the 1996 ``Baking With Julia" cookbook. The white cornmeal boasts an enduring history, says the pastry chef.

``It goes back to the Native Americans who taught the Pilgrims how to cook with corn," he says. In fact, two Rhode Island grist mills still produce the old-style cornmeal. A lot of history in each sweet spoonful. -- LISA ZWIRN