Five Grains of China

In China, in antiquity, five grains or staples were recognized as the most important foods. Most were cereals but, as Francesca Bray (in the section ‘Agriculture’ in Needham, 1984) explains:

The Chinese term for grain, ku, was applied not only to the main cereal crops but also to such field crops as hemp and beans, also cultivated for their grains. Thus wu ku, the ‘five grains’, an expression commonly found in the classical texts, was understood to comprise chi (setaria millet), shu (panicum millet), tao (rice), mai (wheat and barley) and shu (legumes), though some commentators substituted ma (hemp) for rice. Other classifications referred to the ‘six grains’ (liu ku) or the ‘nine grains’ (chiu ku) making up the numbers by using more specific names for wheat, for barley, or for large or small beans.