Fonio Milk

Fonio may be the oldest cultivated cereal in Africa, grown across the Sahel of West Africa for more than 5,000 years. This tiny, quick-cooking grain thrives in poor soils with barely any water, which is why chefs and food scientists now rate it as a crop built for a hotter century — in Mali it's called 'the seed of the universe'. As a milk, fonio is frontier stuff: blended and strained at home, it gives a mild, faintly nutty drink that takes sweetly to dates or vanilla. Nobody's put it in a commercial carton yet, but as the grain wins shelf space in Western supermarkets, that can't be far off. For now, it's one for anyone with a blender and a bit of curiosity.

Emerging — few commercial brands yet