The millets are a group of small-seeded species of cereal crops or grains, widely grown around the world for food and fodder. They do not form a taxonomic group, but rather a functional or agronomic one. Their essential similarities are that they are small-seeded grasses grown in difficult production environments such as those at risk of drought. They have been in cultivation in East Asia for the last 10,000 years.

Millet varieties

The millets include species in several genera, mostly in the subfamily Panicoideae, of the grass family Poaceae. The exceptions, finger millet and teff, are in the subfamily Chloridoideae. The most widely cultivated species in order of worldwide production are: # Pearl millet (''Pennisetum glaucum'') (Also known as Bajra in India, and as Kambu in Tamil) # Foxtail millet (''Setaria italica'') (Also known as Thinai in Tamil) # Proso millet, common millet, broom corn millet, hog millet or white millet (''Panicum miliaceum'') # Finger millet (''Eleusine coracana'') (Also known as Ragi or Mandwa in India, and as Kezhvaragu in Tamil)

Minor millets include:

Indian barnyard millet or Sawa millet (''Echinochloa frumentacea'')

Japanese barnyard millet (''Echinochloa esculenta'')

Kodo millet (''Paspalum scrobiculatum'')

Little millet (''Panicum sumatrense'')

Guinea millet (''Brachiaria deflexa'' = ''Urochloa deflexa'')

Browntop millet (''Urochloa ramosa'' = ''Brachiaria ramosa'' = ''Panicum ramosum'')

Teff (''Eragrostis tef'') and fonio (''Digitaria exilis'') are also often called millets, as more rarely are sorghum (''Sorghum'' spp.) and Job's Tears (''Coix lacrima-jobi'').

History

Specialized archaeologists called palaeoethnobotanists, relying on data such as the relative abundance of charred grains found in archaeological sites, hypothesize that the cultivation of millets was of greater prevalence in prehistory than rice, especially in northern China and Korea. It was millets, rather than rice, that formed important parts of the prehistoric diet in Indian, Chinese Neolithic and Korean Mumun societies. Broomcorn (''Panicum miliaceum'') and foxtail millet were important crops beginning in the Early Neolithic of China. For example, some of the earliest evidence of millet cultivation in China was found at Cishan (north) and Hemudu (south). Cishan dates for common millet husk phytoliths and biomolecular components have been identified around 8300–6700 BC in storage pits along with remains of pit-houses, pottery, and stone tools related to millet cultivation. Evidence at ''Cishan'' for foxtail millet dates back to around 6500 BC. A 4,000-year-old well-preserved bowl containing well-preserved noodles made from foxtail millet and broomcorn millet was found at the Lajia archaeological site in China.

Palaeoethnobotanists have found evidence of the cultivation of millet in the Korean Peninsula dating to the Middle Jeulmun pottery period (c. 3500–2000 BC) (Crawford 1992; Crawford and Lee 2003). Millet continued to be an important element in the intensive, multi-cropping agriculture of the Mumun pottery period (c. 1500–300 BC) in Korea (Crawford and Lee 2003). Millets and their wild ancestors such as barnyard grass and panic grass were also cultivated in Japan during the Jōmon period some time after 4000 BC (Crawford 1983, 1992).

Millet made its way from China to the Black Sea region of Europe by 5000 BC. The cultivation of common millet as the earliest dry crop in East Asia has been attributed to its resistance to drought and this has been suggested to have aided its spread.

Major research on millets is carried out by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics in Andhra Pradesh, India, and by the USDA-ARS at Tifton, Georgia, USA.

Production

India is the world's leading producer of millet.

align=right align=right align=right align=right align=right align=right align=right align=right align=right

colspan=3	Top ten millet producers — 2007
Country	Production (Tonnes)	Footnote
	10,610,000	*
	7,700,000 || align=right>*
<		2,781,928 || align=right |
	2,101,000 || align=right>F
<		1,104,010 || align=right |
	1,074,440 || align=right>F
<		792,000 || align=right>*
<		732,000 || align=right |
	550,000 || align=right>*
<		500,000 || align=right>F
	Source: Food And Agricultural Organization of United Nations: Economic And Social Department: The Statistical Division

Current uses of millet

As a food source

Millets are major food sources in arid and semi-arid regions of the world, and feature in the traditional cuisine of many others. In Western India, Sorghum (called ''Jowar'', ''Jwaarie'' or ''Jondhahlaa'' in Gujarati, Hindi and Marathi languages, respectively, or ''Mutthaari'' or ''Kora'' in malayalam), has been commonly used with millet flour (called "Bajari" in Western India) for hundreds of years to make the local staple hand rolled (that is, without a rolling pin) flat bread (called "Rotla" in Gujarati or "Bhakri" in Marathi or Roti in other languages). Another cereal grain popularly used in rural and poor people to consume as staple in the form of roti or other forms is called Ragi in Karnataka or Naachanie in Maharashtra, with the popularly made Ragi Rotti in Kannada). Ragi Mudde is a popular meal in Southern India. In Telugu it is called జోన౭లు (Jonnalu). Ragi is dark like rye but rougher in texture.

Millet porridge is a traditional food in Russian, German and Chinese сuisines. In Russia it is eaten sweet (with milk and sugar added at the end of the cooking process) or savoury with meat or vegetable stews. In China it is eaten without milk or sugar, frequently with beans, sweet potato, and/or various types of squash; millet soup is commonly used by nursing mothers to aid in milk production and healing from childbirth. In Germany it is also eaten sweet (boiled in water with apples added during the boiling process and honey added during the cooling process).

People with cœliac disease can replace certain gluten-containing cereals in their diets with millet.

Millets are also used as bird and animal feed.

Alcoholic beverages

Millets are traditionally important grains used in brewing millet beer in some cultures, for instance by the Tao people of Orchid Island, Taiwan, and, along with sorghum, by various peoples in East Africa. It is also the base ingredient for the distilled liquor rakshi in Nepal and the indigenous alcoholic drink of the Sherpa, Tamang, and Limbu people, tongba, in Eastern Nepal. In Balkan countries, especially Romania and Bulgaria, millet is used to prepare the fermented drink boza.

Other uses

Millet, along with birdseed, is commonly used as fillings for juggling beanbags.

Millet is widely popular as a treat/food for the domesticated pet Parakeet/Budgerigar.

Nutrition

The protein content in millet is very close to that of wheat; both provide about 11% protein by weight.

Millets are rich in B vitamins, especially niacin, B6 and folic acid, calcium, iron, potassium, magnesium, and zinc. Millets contain no gluten, so they are not suitable for raised bread. When combined with wheat, (or xanthan gum for those who have cœliac disease), they can be used for raised bread. Alone, they are suited for flatbread.

As none of the millets are closely related to wheat, they are appropriate foods for those with cœliac disease or other forms of allergies/intolerance of wheat. However, millets are also a mild thyroid peroxidase inhibitor and probably should not be consumed in great quantities by those with thyroid disease.

Preparation

The basic preparation consists in washing the millet and toasting it while moving until one notes a characteristic scent. Then five measures of boiling water for each two measures of millet are added with some sugar or salt. The mixture is cooked covered using low flame for 30–35 minutes.

Notes

References

External links

fuc Category:Cereals

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bgcolour	#EEDD82
name	Jean-François Millet
birth name	Jean-François Millet
birth date	October 04, 1814
birth place	Gruchy, Gréville-Hague, Normandy
death date	January 20, 1875
nationality	French
field	Painting, Sculpting
movement	Realism
awards	}}

Jean-François Millet (October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875) was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the naturalism and realism movements.

Life and work

Youth

Millet was the first child of Jean-Louis-Nicolas and Aimée-Henriette-Adélaïde Henry Millet, members of the peasant community in the village of Gruchy, in Gréville-Hague (Normandy). Under the guidance of two village priests, Millet acquired a knowledge of Latin and modern authors, before being sent to Cherbourg in 1833 to study with a portrait painter named Paul Dumouchel. By 1835 he was studying full-time with Lucien-Théophile Langlois, a pupil of Baron Gros, in Cherbourg. A stipend provided by Langlois and others enabled Millet to move to Paris in 1837, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Paul Delaroche. In 1839 his scholarship was terminated, and his first submission to the Salon was rejected. In Le Havre he painted portraits and small genre pieces for several months, before moving back to Paris.

It was in Paris in the middle 1840s that Millet befriended Constant Troyon, Narcisse Diaz, Charles Jacque, and Théodore Rousseau, artists who, like Millet, would become associated with the Barbizon school; Honoré Daumier, whose figure draftsmanship would influence Millet's subsequent rendering of peasant subjects; and Alfred Sensier, a government bureaucrat who would become a lifelong supporter and eventually the artist's biographer. In 1847 his first Salon success came with the exhibition of a painting ''Oedipus Taken down from the Tree'', and in 1848 his ''Winnower'' was bought by the government.

''The Captivity of the Jews in Babylon'', Millet's most ambitious work at the time, was unveiled at the Salon of 1848, but was scorned by art critics and the public alike. The painting eventually disappeared shortly thereafter, leading historians to believe that Millet destroyed it. In 1984, scientists at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston x-rayed Millet's 1870 painting ''The Young Sherpherdess'' looking for minor changes, and discovered that it was painted over ''Captivity''. It is now believed that Millet reused the canvas when materials were in short supply during the Franco-Prussian War.

Barbizon

In 1849 Millet painted ''Harvesters'', a commission for the state. In the Salon of that year he exhibited ''Shepherdess Sitting at the Edge of the Forest'', a very small oil which marked a turning away from previous idealized pastoral subjects, in favor of a more realistic and personal approach. In June of that year he settled in Barbizon with Catherine and their children. In 1850 Millet entered into an arrangement with Sensier, who provided the artist with materials and money in return for drawings and paintings, while Millet simultaneously was free to continue selling work to other buyers as well. At that year's Salon he exhibited ''Haymakers'' and ''The Sower'', his first major masterpiece and the earliest of the iconic trio of paintings that would include ''The Gleaners'' and ''The Angelus''.

From 1850 to 1853 Millet worked on ''Harvesters Resting (Ruth and Boaz)'', a painting he would consider his most important, and on which he worked the longest. Conceived to rival his heroes Michelangelo and Poussin, it was also the painting that marked his transition from the depiction of symbolic imagery of peasant life to that of contemporary social conditions. It was the only painting he ever dated, and was the first work to garner him official recognition, a second-class medal at the 1853 salon.

''The Gleaners''

This is one of the most well known of Millet's paintings, ''The Gleaners'' (1857). Walking the fields around Barbizon one theme returned to Millet's pencil and brush for seven years—gleaning—the centuries old right of poor women and children to remove the bits of grain left in the fields following the harvest. He found the theme an eternal one, linked to stories from the Old Testament. In 1857, he submitted the painting ''The Gleaners'' to the Salon to an unenthusiastic, even hostile, public.

(Earlier versions include a vertical composition painted in 1854, an etching of 1855-56 which directly presaged the horizontal format of the painting now in the Musée d'Orsay.)

A warm golden light suggests something sacred and eternal in this daily scene where the struggle to survive takes place. During his years of preparatory studies Millet contemplated how to best convey the sense of repetition and fatigue in the peasants' daily lives. Lines traced over each woman’s back lead to the ground and then back up in a repetitive motion identical to their unending, backbreaking labor. Along the horizon, the setting sun silhouettes the farm with its abundant stacks of grain, in contrast to the large shadowy figures in the foreground. The dark homespun dresses of the gleaners cut robust forms against the golden field, giving each woman a noble, monumental strength.

''The Angelus''

The painting was commissioned by Thomas Gold Appleton, an American art collector who was based in Boston, Massachusetts, and who had previously studied with Barbizon painter, Constant Troyon, a friend of Millet's. It was completed during the summer of 1857. Millet added a steeple and changed the initial title of the work, ''Prayer for the Potato Crop'' to ''The Angelus'' when the purchaser failed to take possession in 1859. Displayed to the public for the first time in 1865, the painting changed hands several times, increasing only modestly in value, since some considered the artist's political sympathies suspect. Upon Millet's death a decade later, a bidding war between the US and France ensued, ending some years later with a price tag of 800,000 gold francs.

The disparity between the apparent value of the painting and the poor estate of Millet's surviving family was a major impetus in the invention of the droit de suite, intended to compensate artists or their heirs when works are resold.

Later years

Despite mixed reviews of the paintings he exhibited at the Salon, Millet's reputation and success grew through the 1860s. At the beginning of the decade he contracted to paint 25 works in return for a monthly stipend for the next three years, and in 1865 another patron, Emile Gavet, began commissioning pastels for a collection that would eventually include 90 works. In 1867 the Exposition Universelle hosted a major showing of his work, with the ''Gleaners'', ''Angelus'', and ''Potato Planters'' among the paintings exhibited. The following year Frédéric Hartmann commissioned ''Four Seasons'' for 25,000 francs, and Millet was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.

Millet is the main protagonist of Mark Twain's play ''Is He Dead?'' (1898), in which he is depicted as a struggling young artist who fakes his death to score fame and fortune. Most of the details about Millet in the play are fictional.

Millet's painting ''L'homme à la houe'' inspired the famous poem "The Man With the Hoe" (1898) by Edwin Markham.

The ''Angelus'' was reproduced frequently in the 19th and 20th centuries. Salvador Dalí was fascinated by this work, and wrote an analysis of it, ''The Tragic Myth of The Angelus of Millet''. Rather than seeing it as a work of spiritual peace, Dalí believed it held messages of repressed sexual aggression. Dalí was also of the opinion that the two figures were praying over their buried child, rather than to the Angelus. Dalí was so insistent on this fact that eventually an X-ray was done of the canvas, confirming his suspicions: the painting contains a painted-over geometric shape strikingly similar to a coffin. However, it is unclear whether Millet changed his mind on the meaning of the painting, or even if the shape actually is a coffin.

Notes

References

Champa, Kermit S. ''The Rise of Landscape Painting in France: Corot to Monet''. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991. ISBN 0-8109-3757-3

Murphy, Alexandra R. ''Jean-François Millet''. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1984. ISBN 0-87846-237-6

Stokes, Simon. ''Art and Copyright''. Hart Publishing, 2001. ISBN 184113225X

External links

www.atelier-millet.fr Official website of the workshop of Jean-François Millet, Barbizon in France]

www.jeanmillet.org 125 works by Jean-François Millet

Maura Coughlin's article on Millet's Norman milkmaids

Influence on Van Gogh

Influence on Dali - grieving parents or praying peasants in The Angelus?

Category:1814 births Category:1875 deaths Category:People from Manche Category:French painters Category:Realist painters

an:Jean-François Millet bg:Жан-Франсоа Миле ca:Jean-François Millet cs:Jean-François Millet de:Jean-François Millet et:Jean-François Millet es:Jean-François Millet eu:Jean-François Millet fa:ژان فرانسوا میله fr:Jean-François Millet gl:Jean-François Millet ko:장프랑수아 밀레 hy:Ժան Ֆրանսուա Միլլե hr:Jean-François Millet it:Jean-François Millet hu:Jean-François Millet nl:Jean-François Millet ja:ジャン＝フランソワ・ミレー no:Jean-François Millet pl:Jean-François Millet pt:Jean-François Millet ro:Jean-François Millet ru:Милле, Жан-Франсуа sr:Жан-Франсоа Мије fi:Jean-François Millet sv:Jean François Millet th:ฌ็อง-ฟร็องซัว มีแล uk:Жан-Франсуа Мілле vi:Jean-François Millet zh:讓-弗朗索瓦·米勒

Jean François Papillon was a leader of the 1791 slave uprising that began the Haïtian Revolution.

With Georges Biassou and Jeannot, he was among those whom Dutty Boukman prophesied would lead the revolution. Jean François emerged as one of the principal leaders of the black insurrection during the period 1791-1795. Whites who were taken prisoner during the early stages of the insurrection described him as humane and sensible, and less violent than Biassou. In 1794, however, François led a massacre of over 700 French civilians at Fort Dauphin.

Together with other Haitian leaders, François fought with the Spanish royalists against the French Revolutionary authorities in colonial Haïti. Defeated by his former ally Toussaint Louverture, who supported the French after they freed the slaves, François remained in Spanish service.

He relocated to Spain, where he died during the Napoleonic period.

External links

''Jean François'' at ''The Louverture Project''

Category:Haitian rebel slaves Category:People of the Haitian Revolution Category:People of the Latin American wars of independence

fr:Jean-François (esclave de Saint-Domingue)

Catherine Millet (born 1 April 1948 in Bois-Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French writer, art critic, curator, and founder and editor of the magazine ''Art Press'', which focuses on modern art and contemporary art.

Born in Bois-Colombes, France, she is best known as the author of the 2002 memoir ''The Sexual Life of Catherine M.''; the book details her sexual history, from childhood masturbation to an adult fascination with group sex. The book was reviewed by Edmund White as "the most explicit book about sex ever written by a woman".

In 2008 she published a sequel of sorts called ''Jour de Souffrance'', translated to English in 2009 as ''Jealousy: The Other Life of Catherine M.''

She is married to the poet and novelist Jacques Henric.

External links

Books That Changed My Life PEN World Voices at the New York Public Library May 4, 2008

Guardian Unlimited Book: Interview, Catherine Millet

Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:People from Bois-Colombes Category:French art critics Category:French curators Category:French memoirists Category:French erotica writers

ca:Catherine Millet de:Catherine Millet es:Catherine Millet fa:کاترین می‌یه fr:Catherine Millet ko:카트린 밀레 pt:Catherine Millet fi:Catherine Millet