The "grain" in "five grains" originally refers to the grain with a shell, but the pronunciation of the word "grain" is actually derived from the sound of "shell". In ancient times, there were many different sayings about five grains, among which there were two main ones: one refers to rice, millet, millet, wheat and glutinous rice; The other refers to hemp, millet, millet, wheat and glutinous rice. But now the grain is actually just the general name of food crops, or refers to food crops in general.
Rice is processed rice. Rice is an essential staple food on the table of China people, so it is listed as the first of the five grains. The ancient economic and cultural center was in the Yellow River Basin (now in Henan). The growth of rice is closely related to the climate. It needs sufficient rainfall and humid air, so it is mainly produced in the south. Rice planting in the north is limited, and people here will use hemp instead of rice as one of the five grains. Therefore, there are two sayings of "rice without hemp" and "rice without hemp" in the five grains.
Millet is yellow rice, which is slightly larger than millet. It is sticky after cooking and can be used to make wine or cakes. The fly in the ointment is that millet is not conducive to digestion, so basically no one uses millet as a staple food now.
Millet is also called millet, which is millet. The earliest wine in China was brewed from millet. Millet was a very important grain in ancient times, so the word "country" was used to refer to the country. They are suitable for growing in arid areas, and their stems and leaves are hard, which can be used as feed, and generally only cattle can digest them.
Wheat is divided into barley and wheat, especially wheat in ancient times, used to make flour. The ancients called barley Xun, which is two completely different grains from wheat. The Tibetan people eat the most barley, and the highland barley they eat is a kind of barley.
Soybean is a general term for beans, but there were not as many kinds of beans in ancient times as there are now, mainly soybeans. As the old saying goes, "the loser is the general name of many beans." However, soybeans are called glutinous rice, bean seedlings are called huo, and adzuki beans are called glutinous rice. "
Hemp, commonly known as hemp seed, is mainly used for agricultural production. After retting, its stem bark can be used to make hemp rope, hemp clothes, hemp paper and so on, which is very durable. After peeling, the stems can be used as firewood to build houses, which feels a little woody. The skins and stems can be made into various high-grade papers such as Xuan paper by refining fibers.