Europe
The forgotten grain of medieval Europe — before maize, before potatoes
Countries: Italy, Russia, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Germany
Overview
Before the Columbian Exchange transformed European agriculture with maize and potatoes from the Americas, millet was one of the continent's most important cereals. Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum) arrived in Europe via the Silk Road corridors around 2000-1500 BCE and quickly became a staple across the Danube Basin, the Italian peninsula, and the Eastern European plains. Roman authors including Pliny the Elder documented millet's widespread cultivation and its role in feeding both citizens and soldiers. In medieval Italy, millet polenta (polenta di miglio) was the everyday food of peasants and urban workers centuries before maize polenta replaced it after the 16th century. Across Eastern Europe, millet porridge and kasha traditions persisted far longer, and in some regions — particularly Russia, Ukraine, and Romania — proso millet never fully disappeared from the kitchen.
Key Fact
Before maize arrived from the Americas in the 16th century, millet polenta — not corn polenta — was the everyday food of northern Italian peasants for over a thousand years.
Primary Millets
Iconic Foods
Polenta di Miglio (Millet Polenta)
The original Italian polenta, made from millet flour long before maize arrived from the Americas in the 16th century. Millet polenta was the daily sustenance of northern Italian peasants, particularly in the Veneto, Lombardy, and Friuli regions. It was typically served soft with stews or cooled and sliced for grilling. Some artisanal Italian producers have revived millet polenta as a heritage food.
Pshyonnaya Kasha (Пшённая каша)
Russian millet porridge, cooked with milk or water and served with butter, honey, or pumpkin. Pshyonnaya kasha has been a staple of Russian peasant cuisine for centuries and remains popular as a breakfast and side dish. It is one of the "canonical" Russian kashi (porridges) alongside buckwheat and oat.
Hirse Auflauf (Millet Bake)
A baked millet casserole combined with eggs, milk, and fruit (often apples or cherries), traditional in southern German and Austrian alpine cuisine. Hirse Auflauf has seen a revival in the German organic and whole-foods movement, where millet is promoted as a locally grown, gluten-free alternative to imported quinoa.
Mămăligă cu Mei
A Romanian millet porridge related to the better-known maize mămăligă. Before corn arrived in Wallachia and Moldavia in the 17th century, millet mămăligă was the peasant staple of the Danubian principalities. Some traditional cooks in rural Transylvania still prepare millet mămăligă for holiday meals.
Köleskása
Hungarian millet porridge (köles = millet), served sweet with cinnamon and sugar or savoury with sour cream and bacon. Köleskása was a common food of the Hungarian plains (puszta) and appears in medieval Hungarian cookbooks. The dish is experiencing a revival as part of Hungary's "Hungarikum" heritage food programme.
Historical Highlights
Bronze Age arrival of millet in Europe
Proso millet arrived in Europe through the steppe corridors connecting Central Asia to the Danube Basin during the Bronze Age. Archaeobotanical evidence from sites in Hungary, Romania, and northern Italy shows millet cultivation was widespread by 1500 BCE, making it one of the earliest cultivated crops in temperate Europe alongside emmer wheat and barley.
Pliny the Elder on millet cultivation
In his Naturalis Historia (Book XVIII), Pliny the Elder described millet as a crop "of remarkable productiveness" grown widely across the Roman Empire. He noted that Campanian millet made an excellent white porridge (puls) and that the grain could be stored for remarkably long periods without spoiling — a critical advantage for military provisioning.
Medieval millet polenta in Italy
Throughout the medieval period, millet polenta (pulmentum) was the daily food of northern Italian peasants and urban labourers. Venetian records from the 14th century document large-scale millet imports from the terraferma (mainland) to feed the city's population. Millet polenta only began its decline after maize arrived from the Americas in the late 1500s.
Columbian Exchange displacement
The arrival of maize and potatoes from the Americas gradually displaced millet across most of Western Europe. Maize offered higher yields in the same growing conditions, and potato proved even more productive. By the 18th century, millet had largely vanished from Western European agriculture, though it persisted in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Cultural Significance
Millet's European story is one of deep significance followed by near-total forgetting. In ancient Rome, millet porridge (puls) was the food of the common people — the "bread and butter" before leavened bread became widespread. Roman soldiers carried millet as field rations, and the grain was associated with rustic virtue and self-sufficiency. In medieval Venice, the city maintained strategic millet reserves in the same way modern nations stockpile wheat, recognising the grain's extraordinary shelf life (properly stored proso millet can remain viable for over a decade). The Russian kasha tradition carries moral weight: the proverb "shchi da kasha — pishcha nasha" (cabbage soup and kasha — that's our food) expresses national identity through humble grain porridge. In Hungary, the folk saying "aki kölest vet, az aranyat arat" (who sows millet, reaps gold) reflects the crop's historical value on the Hungarian plains.
Modern Status
Europe's relationship with millet is undergoing a cautious revival. Russia and Ukraine remain the continent's largest producers, with Russia harvesting approximately 300,000-500,000 tonnes of proso millet annually. Within the EU, millet is primarily grown in Hungary, Romania, and France as bird feed and increasingly for the gluten-free food market. Germany's organic food sector has embraced millet as a sustainable, locally-adapted alternative to imported superfoods — Alnatura, DM, and other German organic brands prominently feature millet products. Italy's slow food movement has included millet polenta in its "Ark of Taste" project documenting endangered heritage foods. The EU's Farm to Fork strategy and growing interest in drought-resistant crops for climate adaptation have placed millet on agricultural research agendas, with the European Commission funding millet breeding programmes for the first time.
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