MILLET - Panicum miliaceum

Likely native to Asia or Africa, millet is so old we may never trace its beginnings with certainty. We do know that people in what would become China cultivated millet about 6500 BC, well before they grew large amounts of rice, wheat or barley. Millet traveled to India and into Europe and by the Middle Ages was probably feeding more people than did wheat.

Today Ethiopians depend on a millet called “teff,” which may have originated in the mountains of East Africa. A staple of Ethiopian cooking, teff has saved many people from starvation. Millet resists drought, grows well in poor soils and is full of protein and minerals. Yet even among people who eat it, millet is considered lacking in flavor. Not many North Americans or Europeans eat millet, feeding it instead to their birds and livestock. A millet extremely familiar to North Americans is a tropical version known as Eleusine indica or “crabgrass.”

millet1 Millet plant (HFCA)

millet2 Millet field in West Africa (Time/Life Series: Cooking of Africa)

millet3 African women pounding millet (Smithsonian Magazine)

millet4 Sorghum (millet) press for syrup (mid 20th ct. photo) (HFCA)

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