the.com/sesame
the seed so ancient it opened caves, salads, and entire civilizations
means A flowering plant cultivated for its small, flat, oil-rich edible seeds, which are used whole, ground into paste, or pressed for oil.
from Sesame came into English (via Latin and Greek 'sesamon') from a Semitic source — compare Aramaic 'shumshema' and Akkadian 'shamashshammu' — reflecting just how far back and how far afield this crop traveled across the ancient Near East. The famous cry 'Open Sesame' from the Arabian Nights tale of Ali Baba is genuinely tied to the seed: sesame pods burst open sharply when ripe, which likely made the word a fitting magic key for a cave door.
- oldest oilseed
- Cultivated over 3,000 years, possibly humanity's first oil crop
- drought champion
- Thrives where most crops simply give up
- explosive pods
- Capsules burst open when ripe, scattering seeds
- open sesame
- The magic phrase nods to those splitting pods
- allergy heavyweight
- Now a top-nine labeled allergen in the US
sesame street — children's educational tv show that premiered on pbs in 1969 and has taught literacy to generations worldwide
open sesame — magical incantation from ali baba and the forty thieves that became the most famous sesame reference in literature