Today we woke up to a cold, snowy morning. A hot, nourishing breakfast would be very welcome after milking and haying the animals out in the cold so I made millet porridge for us all to come inside to.

Here is a close-up photo of dry millet. Click on the photo to go to a nutritional chart of this tasty grain. Go here to read about some of the history of millet in human cultivation and diet.

From the very useful book Grains of Truth by Donna Spann, we learn the following about millet:

This grain is so old, that no one’s really sure just how long it’s been around. One school of thought claims that millet dates back to the Neolithic age or older. It’s even been suggested that millet was one of the favorite meals of the brontosaurus and friends as they grazed their way across the land before Noah’s flood. Millet’s first official mention is found in the Fan Shen Chiu Shu (tables of agricultural dicta compiled in 2800 BC). This document declared millet to be one of the China’s five sacred crops (it was a staple in China before rice). This tiny grain was also being cultivated in India during the same period of time and is surrounded by all kinds of folklore and mythology. Biblically, millet is referred to as the “gruel of endurance” in the Old Testament and was commonly used. Cooked into a porridge or pottage, it was a main staple of the Etruscans, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Persians, Assyrians, Tartars and Visigoths. All these people believed that millet would keep them “sound of body and clear of mind” in an evil world. p. 69

Author Donna Spann stumbled upon the following way of slow baking millet into a porridge. I am adding a few details. Decide how much porridge you want to make and measure out the appropriate amount of millet. (Donna used 1 cup of dry millet. I use 3 cups of dry millet to feed 8 people and sometimes have a bit leftover.) Pick through the millet and remove any stones or debris. Meanwhile heat a cast iron frying pan on the stove. Pour the cleaned millet into the frying pan and toast it on medium low heat by stirring it until the millet starts to get golden (more golden than it already is!). Toasting the grain before baking brings out flavor. Take off the heat. Pour into a casserole dish. Add water in the ratio of 4 parts water to 1 part millet. The amount I make fits nicely into a 11×17 glass lasagna pan. Cover with tin foil and bake for 3 hours at 250 degrees.

When you pull the pan out of the oven and lift the tin foil, you will be greeted by a lovely hot porridge of a pale color. Serve hot with generous amounts of farm fresh butter, sea salt and freshly ground pepper. You could also serve it sweet but I personally try to stay away from serving sweet foods at breakfast. You can also bake this the day before and re-heat it for breakfast.

Mrs. Spann provides quite a bit more information such as the fact that millet is gluten-free, contains the complete vitamin B complex and more of the amino acid lysine than wheat, rice, oats or corn.

So serve up some millet porridge for your family and be a part of history.

By the way, Grains of Truth is not available on Amazon. In addition to the Grains of Truth web site, you can find it and/or reviews of it on Bread Beckers, Real Food Living, and The Healthful Journey among other places. I highly recommend both this book and a hot breakfast of millet porridge.

From the beautiful mountains of southwest Virginia,

Leslie

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