Two cereal (wheat and maize) and two legume (faba bean and smooth pea) starches were compared with respect to their rheological properties. Their pasting behaviours were estimated by means of two viscographicmethods, the Brabender Viscograph and the Ottawa Starch Viscometer, and by their swelling-solubility patterns. Furthermore, the rheological properties of pastes were characterised by studying their flow behaviour with a coaxial cylinders viscometer (Rheomat 30). When compared with cereal starches legume starches were characterised by solubilisation at lower temperatures and more restricted swelling, but yielded pastes of comparable consistency. Thus, wheat and pea starch pastes had similar viscosities, whereas faba bean starch had a consistency intermediate between those of wheat and maize starch. However, as shown by the flow properties, a wide range of behaviour was observed, depending upon the pasting conditions. On the assumption that starch pastes are suspensions of swollen particles dispersed in a macromolecular medium, these data could be interpreted on the basis of the swelling-solubility behaviour. Differences between the Brabender Viscograph and the Ottawa Starch Viscometer could be ascribed to different pasting conditions, leading to quite different swelling and solubilisation. The flow properties could be interpreted in the same way and it was shown that the quite similar flow behaviour shown by legume and cereal starches under certain conditions did not correspond to the same suspension structure. Hence starch functionality, which must be related to paste viscosity and retrogradation as well, cannot be estimated only on the basis of viscographic patterns and swelling-solubility profiles.