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i don't know if there is an official flavor difference, but since cornmeal and masa harina are used so differently, in my experience the cooking method makes the end product taste very different. seems like things made with masa harina get a lot toastier, whereas things made with cornmeal are...cornier? does that make sense? :) and sweeter, maybe. but i generally wouldn't substitute one for the other - the finer grind makes masa harina more appropriate for some things and less for others.

ooh, but this sounds insanely good:

http://www.chow.com/recipes/11286

This sounds like the difference between grits and cornmeal to me. For grits the husk would be removed before grinding, I'm not sure if this is what they do to harina.

They're not soaked in lime-the-citrus-fruit, but lime-as-in-calcium-hydroxide.

According to Mr. Harold McGee (my favorite food scientist ever), "During the steeping, the alkalinity softens the hull and cell walls throughout, causes the storage proteins to bond to each other, and breaks apart some of the corn oil into excellent emulsifiers (mono and diglycerides)."

I only have a vague understanding of what that means, but I know that you can't make corn tortillas out of cornmeal -- they fall apart and never develop that "doughy" quality. I always think that masa tastes much toastier (roastier?) than cornmeal.

In my experience, it's hard to compare because the texture is so different, and I've never had both the meal and the harinilla cooked the same way to compare. I wonder if the corn bits left in the cornmeal add a nutty taste. I tried to make corn tortillas out of corn meal once--didn't work at all. It did, however, make a great polenta! Maybe the best comparison I can offer to answer what you're asking is to ask you trying to make a cake out of wheat germ (I can't think of a closer approximation to corn meal) instead of flour (the masa harinilla). I'm not sure if protein development factors in at all the way it does with flour, though.

Once I did a little experiment while making fried calamari. One batch was coated in seasoned corn flour (like cornmeal, except ground to the consistency of AP flour), and another with seasoned masa harina, which I had leftover from making tortillas. The batch with masa browned much more quickly, and had a much stronger flavor. This was not so great with calamari, since I was going for a relatively light flavor and crisp texture, but it could work for other things. It follows that It would probably produce a cornbread with a browner crust and more intense flavor. I'm not sure how it would affect the texture.

leenwebb is right; it's a process called "nixtamalization," and transforms the corn into a complete protein. More here.

Lime JUICE?!? I can't believe how far off the mark this article is.