Amaranth is the minuscule, pale-gold seed of a tall, broad-leaved plant of the genus Amaranthus, cooked and eaten like a grain but botanically a pseudocereal — kin to beet, spinach and quinoa rather than to wheat or rice. Each seed is barely a millimetre across, smaller than a poppy seed, and cooks to a soft, glutinous, porridge-like mass with a distinctive nutty, faintly peppery, earthy taste. A staple of the Aztec and Maya worlds, it is naturally gluten-free, unusually high in protein, and most famous toasted and popped into the Mexican sweet alegria; the tender young leaves are eaten as a cooked green across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.