Millet

Millet is a general term for a group of small-seeded cereal grasses, including pearl millet, proso millet, foxtail millet and finger millet among several others, that have been cultivated as food crops across Africa and Asia for thousands of years. As a culinary ingredient, millet grains are naturally gluten-free and drought tolerant relative to many major cereals, and they are cooked whole much like rice, ground into flour for flatbreads, or fermented into traditional porridges and beverages in the regions where they remain a staple. Several individual millet species are documented as their own separate ingredients; this entry covers the generic culinary and commodity term under which they are commonly grouped and sold, in the same way Wheat stands alongside its own named varieties.