# Who uses millet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** food-cooking\ **Created:** [April 6, 2023, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275 "2023-04-06T21:51:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275/21 "2023-04-07T16:56:12Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I’ve not cooked with it. Anyone? Use it like rice? I grew up eating sorghum porridge on the regular, and fonio and pearl millets are African staples. They most often are cooked into porridge or stiffer like polenta, or thinned down and fermented into a drink. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275/22 "2023-04-07T22:18:49Z")
If you need to buy spices or exotic flours, go to an Indian grocery store. They have a variety of flours made from millet, sorghum, various beans, various lentils, chickpeas, amaranth, rice and many other things (including the grains). Cheap prices. (2 lb flour for $2-5 in Canada depending on type; huge bags of cheap spice). Worth trying in the bread machine, but for this use I’d start by substituting 10-25% of wheat flour, and go from there. However, you are likely more inspired than I. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275/23 "2023-04-07T22:22:35Z")
As a rule of thumb you can replace up to half the wheat flour in a bread recipe with a different flour and still get bread, although it will be denser in texture. Starting with substituting a smaller amount is a good strategy. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2023, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275/24 "2023-04-07T22:57:40Z")
> [@Dr\_Paprika](#): > > go to an Indian grocery store Very good suggestion. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275/25 "2023-04-08T19:08:42Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Never heard of fonio; it sounds like a native grain to western Africa, and versatile like quinoa, which is native to the Andes. The folks\* trying to popularize fonio in the US are trying avoid what happened with quinoa, where the locals had trouble affording it after it took off here. Apparently mechanized de-hulling (threshing/winnowing?) of fonio is recent, so it was hard to user before. Possibly covered already in one of the links, but “millet” is a general label slapped on a bunch of unrelated grains that just happen to look similar. \*I got mine from Yolélé. From the Wikipedia article: > In the United States, Yolélé Foods, led by Senegalese-American chef Pierre Thiam, started importing and selling fonio in 2017. Thiam hopes to not only introduce Americans to the grain, but support sustainable and traditional agriculture in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Senegal. What is considered to be a peasant’s food in West Africa is now sold in luxury grocery stores in the United States. > However, Thiam positions his project as part of a larger movement to elevate the economic power of African farmers, who for centuries have been suppressed by Western hegemony in the global food system. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275/26 "2023-04-08T21:03:51Z")
You get bread, but something delicious is different. You still might want good crumb, colour, aroma, taste, longevity, crust and lack of bitterness or off flavours. You can add bean flour, for example. At 10% you barely notice it. At 25% a bread will smell very strongly of beans and has less appealing crumb and colour. If just playing around and not following a tried-and-true recipe I would suggest starting at 10%, not 50%, but of course people can do whatever they wish and have different goals or satisficing tolerances. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2023, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275/27 "2023-04-08T22:10:33Z")
True, very true. As I said - you can replace _up to_ 50%, that certainly does not mean you have to do so. I do certain multi-grain breads that are only 50% wheat flour (usually bread flour) but it’s a mix of things that I am reasonably sure or, due to experience, actually sure, will be something I wish to eat. Otherwise - good to know in a famine survival situation but not something one would wish to eat if there was an alternative. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-uses-millet/982275.md?page=1)