Biology:List of Five grains in world culture

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Rice grains showing diversity
Bi'ur Chametz, burning to eliminate five chametz grains before the Jewish holiday of Passover

Five grains, traditional set phrase for lists or groupings which may contain non-grain crops.[citation needed] Particular instances of Five grains of a single crop or other substance such as minerals and metals have historical or cultural significance as well.[1]

They may refer to:

East Asia

  • Five Cereals, various lists of the most important cultivated crops assigned since the earliest mythological times in Chinese cuisine, farming, and civil and spiritual culture[citation needed]
  • Baijiu liquor, whose varieties include Five Grains Liquid (Wuliangye, 五 粮 液)
  • Korean cuisine, in whose myths deities brought seeds of five grains
    • Ogokbap, a mixture of rice mixed with glutinous rice, cornstarch, red bean, perilla, and soybean in Korean cuisine
  • A group of crops in Japanese cuisine and spiritual culture whose guardian is Ukanomitama no kami, a spirit to whom Kasama Inari Shrine is dedicated, and which are honored with a Five Grains Garden in Manyo Botanical Garden, Nara

West Asia

  • Five species of grain (commonly considered to be wheat, barley, oats, rye and spelt) can become chametz and matzah in Judaism.

Europe

  • Five grains of incense are used in the course of Christian religious Dedication, (section Medieval Western customs) of altars and sacred places, as with Exsultet Easter Proclamation and the use of the Paschal candle

Atlantic

  • "Five grains of corn," the daily ration of starving settlers from Europe traveling by ship in search of New World settlement, a tradition of Christian Thanksgiving lore [2]

Mesoamerica

  • In the Mayan board game Bul, if 5 tossed corn kernels marked on one side came up blank, the count was 5[3]
  • In the Mexica Aztec board game Patolli, 5 dimpled beans or stones were used like dice[3]

Chemistry

  • Using Grain (unit), a 325mg tablet of aspirin is sometimes referred to as "five grain aspirin."
  • "Five grains of gold" are used in such European formulae as that for the gilding of buttons, where they are used in an amalgam of mercury[4]
  • The chemical specification of Coyoteite, NaFe3S5·2H2O, which was performed by electron microprobing of five grains of this mineral

References

  1. Erd, Richard C.; Czamanske, Gerald K. (1983). "Orickite and coyoteite, two new sulfide minerals from Coyote Peak, HunboldtCountry, California". American Mineralogist 68: 245–254, [1]
  2. Adoro Te Devote
  3. 3.0 3.1 "Mayan Games". http://www.greatdreams.com/mayan/mayan-games.htm. 
  4. The Family magazine, or, Monthly abstract of general knowledge, Volume 2, 1837 CE, p. 413