Is it the millet's fault? The once popular staple food is now hard to find

As a country of foodies, I guess everyone knows a lot about food, and can talk endlessly about all kinds of delicacies. Especially in recent years, with the development of technology, our food has become more and more abundant. Of course, some foods are slowly disappearing from our diet. Today I will tell you about a crop that was more common when I was a child, but is becoming less and less common nowadays - millet, one of the five grains .

Big rat, big rat, don't eat my millet - The Book of Songs

The millet is scattered, the millet seedlings are scattered... Those who know me say that I am worried, those who do not know me say what I am looking for. - "The Book of Songs"

When I went there, the millet and sorghum were in full bloom. When I come back, the road is covered with rain and snow. - The Book of Songs

An old friend prepared chicken and rice and invited me to his farm. - "Visiting an Old Friend's Farm" by Meng Haoran, Tang Dynasty

As a native of Shanxi, I often saw and ate millet when I was a child. After I left this land, I found that there are very few places in the country where millet is eaten. Many people have never even heard of this thing. The only impression everyone has is probably the word "shushu".

01. The earliest domesticated plant in China

When it comes to civilization, agriculture is the root. Without agriculture, there would be no civilization. With agriculture, people began to settle on the land, and then villages, towns, cities, culture and civilization appeared. Therefore, it has always been important to explore the source of agriculture.

Today, we like to talk about the time when humans first domesticated wheat in West Asia, which marked the starting point of agriculture.

However, in the East, our Chinese ancestors were equally impressive. They domesticated rice in the Yangtze River Basin (unfortunately, for a long time, this achievement was considered to be India's), and millet in the Yellow River Basin. Among them, millet may be the first plant domesticated by China.

Lyu Houyuan and others from the Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, studied the phytoliths of 47 plant ash samples in the cellars of the Cishan site and found that all of these samples, which dated back about 10,300 to 8,700 years, were millet phytoliths. It should be noted that at this time, there were already a large number of remains. In other words, China had stored a large amount of millet at least 10,000 years ago, and it is difficult to conclude that this was purely picked, but more of a result of agriculture.

Speaking of millet, we have to mention another plant, foxtail millet, which is what we call millet.

However, there is still a clear distinction between the two. As shown in the following picture, the one above is millet, also known as sorghum, and the one below is sorghum.

The two are obviously different. In the relevant remains, millet appeared much later. During the period of about 8700 to 7500 years ago, a small amount of millet phytoliths began to appear, but the content of millet never exceeded 3%, and millet was still the main grain.

All these confirm that millet is the earliest domesticated crop in China, and it was the main food for people for a long time.

02. The disappearance of millet

Today, millet is grown in very small areas, mainly in the central and eastern parts of Gansu Province, the entire Shaanxi Province, and the central and southern parts of Shanxi Province. The above-mentioned areas are one of the main millet producing areas in China.

But in the past, it was the staple food of the Chinese people, just like the poems about millet mentioned at the beginning. For example, there is "Shu Li" in the Book of Songs, and "Big rat, big rat, don't eat my millet". Even in the Ming Dynasty, the textbook "Nu Zhou Ji" still mentioned millet.

The boat is about eight fen long from head to tail, and about two grains of rice in height. - Wei Xueyi, Ming Dynasty, "Notes on the Walnut Boat"

The advantage of millet is that it is particularly easy to grow. In the past, in arid areas, millet could grow by relying on natural precipitation without irrigation or fertilization. It is a drought-tolerant plant and is not picky about the environment. Therefore, in ancient times when agriculture was not developed, millet could be said to be a crop with unique advantages.

Millet can be cooked and eaten directly, or it can be ground into flour and made into cakes.

Because millet is highly glutinous and resistant to digestion, this is an important reason why it once became the staple food in the north.

However, today, millet has rarely appeared in the public eye, especially with the nationwide improvement and promotion of wheat and rice, which is also the result of agricultural progress.

Lu H, Zhang J, Wu N, Liu Kb, Xu D, Li Q. (2009) Phytoliths Analysis for the Discrimination of Foxtail Millet (Setaria italica) and Common Millet (Panicum miliaceum).

Houyuan Lu, Jianping Zhang, Kam-biu Liu, Naiqin Wu, Yumei Li, Kunshu Zhou, Maolin Ye, Tianyu Zhang, Haijiang Zhang, Xiaoyan Yang, Licheng Shen, Deke Xu , Quan Li（2009）Earliest domestication of common millet (Panicum miliaceum) in East Asia extended to。