The tiny sesame seed has fueled empires. Eaten as a food since 3500 BCE in India and Africa, and used by ancient Byzantine and Greek armies for “energy bars” of sesame and honey for soldiers. It is used heavily in Asia for its flavor, oil, and medicinal benefits. It arrived to the Americas with the slave trade, when enslaved Africans brought their culture, seeds, and knowledge with them.
Sesame seeds are more than simply delicious. The properties of sesame and its oil are useful for all aspects of modern life. Besides being grown for human consumption, it is an industrial workhorse needed for: soaps, paints, insecticides, machinery lubricants, preservatives, cosmetics, solvents, pharmaceutical applications, and even used in your particle board furniture that you struggled to assemble with nothing but a toy-like hex wrench and wordless illustrations for instructions.
Maybe we wouldn’t even be here today without the help of sesame. The sesame diaspora reflects the story of humans spreading across the world.
As always, human history is full of violence and greed, and the thirst for flavor and innovations. That sprinkling of sesame over your bagel is an echo of sesame’s history. To take part in the continuation of that history (not the violent part), here are some sesame flavor pairings for your next culinary adventure:
Sesame + Eggplant
Sesame + Chocolate
Sesame + Miso
Sesame + Green Tea
Sesame + Tofu
Sesame + Honey
Sesame + Coffee
Sesame + Rice
Sesame + Sweet Potato
Sesame + Spinach
Sesame + Vanilla ice cream
