The Five Chinese Cereals are a group of five grains that were regarded as sacred in ancient China. The Five Chinese Cereals were so important for the ancient Chinese that they had their own god, Houji.
The Five Chinese Cereals are listed in Fah Shên-chih Shu, a text on farming written by Fah Shên-chih around the year 2800 BC. This list contains soybean, rice, wheat, proso millet and foxtail millet. In the Classic of Rites, one of the Five Classics of the Confucian canon, rice is substituted with hemp.
Soybean is not actually a cereal grain, but all the other ones are. Sometimes, the Five Chinese Cereals are instead referred to as the Five Chinese Grains or the Five Chinese Crops.
Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) is believed to have been domesticated independently in both China and Transcaucasia roughly 7000 years ago. It is known under several different names, such as common millet, hog millet broom corn, and white millet. It contains no gluten and can therefore be tolerated by people who are gluten intolerant. The crop is still common in countries such as India, Russia and Ukraine.
Foxtail millet (Setaria italica) has been grown in China since the sixth millennium BC and is referred to as Xiao Mi (小米) which means ‘Little Rice’. It is still very important source of nutrients for poor people living in the dry northern part of the country. It requires little water and is quickly ready for harvest.
