WHEN IN DROUGHT

This obscure yet adaptable grain could be a healthy staple for a warming planet.

- MIRANDA LIPTON

As a child, Senegalese-born chef Pierre Thiam took trips from Dakar to the countryside to visit his grandparents. There, he often ate fonio, a locally grown seeded grass rarely found outside rural areas. After making a name for himself at New York restaurants decades later, Thiam’s thoughts returned to the ingredient. “It’s very versatile,” he says. “It’s a delicate grain,” mild and nutty with a fluffy texture that resembles couscous. But he couldn’t find it anywhere, so he began importing it through his food supply company, Yolélé. It wasn’t just fonio’s texture that he saw as a boon for the US market: The grain has attributes that make it especially enticing in a warming world.