Millet is not one plant but a group of small-seeded annual grasses grown for their tiny, round, husked grains — most commonly proso (the species named here), pearl, finger and foxtail millets. The cleaned kernels are pale yellow to grey, scarcely larger than a mustard seed, and cook up either light and fluffy like couscous or, with extra water and stirring, soft and creamy like polenta. The flavour is mild, faintly sweet and gently nutty, and the grain is naturally gluten-free. Across Africa and Asia millet is a daily staple feeding hundreds of millions of people as porridge, steamed grain and flatbread; in the West it is best known, somewhat unfairly, as birdseed.