B-Side

Open Sesame

The Oldest Seed in the World Has Been Waiting for You to Pay Attention.

I was at a food festival a few weeks ago when I saw a sign at a vendor’s booth that stopped me mid-stride.

“No Seed Oils Used.”

I’m all for that conversation. I’ve been on the right side of it for a while — avoiding the industrial seed oils that most of us grew up cooking with, the canola and soybean and sunflower that got processed into everything. But the sign made me think about something I hadn’t considered.

What about sesame oil?

I use it. I love it. The toasted version — dark, nutty, a few drops at the end of a stir-fry that changes the entire dish. Is that a seed oil? Am I the villain in my own story?

So I looked it up. And what I found opened a door I didn’t expect.

The Cave

In the folktale “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves” from One Thousand and One Nights, the phrase “open sesame” unlocks the entrance to a hidden cave full of treasure. Nobody knows for certain why the storytellers chose sesame. But there’s a theory that makes perfect sense: when a ripe sesame pod dries on the plant, it bursts open on its own. The seed literally unlocks itself.

It’s one of the oldest cultivated crops in human history — over five thousand years. Civilizations across Asia, Africa, and the Middle East built entire food cultures around it. And the more I looked into what this tiny seed actually does, the more I understood why.

Same Seed, Different Remix

Here’s something most people don’t realize: tahini and sesame paste are not the same thing.

Tahini is made from hulled, lightly toasted sesame seeds. It’s pale, smooth, mild — the Middle Eastern pantry staple. It’s what makes hummus creamy. It’s what you drizzle on falafel. It’s what I eat by the spoonful when nobody’s watching.

Sesame paste — the Chinese and East Asian version — uses deeply roasted, unhulled seeds. It’s darker, richer, more intense. If tahini whispers, sesame paste leans in and tells you something important.

Same seed. Completely different destination. That’s the remix.

And then there’s sesame oil. The light version has a medium smoke point and works as a cooking oil. The toasted version — dark amber, fragrant — is a finishing oil. A few drops at the end. You don’t cook with it. You crown the dish with it.

The Seed Oil That Breaks the Rules

So is sesame oil a seed oil? Technically, yes. But here’s where it gets interesting.

The seed oils people are worried about — canola, soybean, sunflower, corn — are industrially processed, high in omega-6 fatty acids, and prone to oxidation. That oxidation is what drives inflammation. That’s the concern, and it’s a legitimate one.

Sesame oil is high in omega-6 too. On paper, it should be in the same category. But sesame does something the others don’t.

It contains a compound called sesamin — a lignan that blocks the enzyme responsible for converting omega-6 into inflammatory molecules. The seed brings its own anti-inflammatory bodyguard to the party. Studies have shown that despite its omega-6 content, sesame oil actually reduces inflammatory markers. It’s one of the most oxidation-resistant vegetable oils on the planet, even though it’s 85% unsaturated fat.

It’s been used for five thousand years. It requires minimal processing. And the science says it’s not the problem child in the seed oil family — it’s the exception.

The vendor’s sign was right to question seed oils. But sesame earned its place at the table a long time ago.

My Sesame Life

Once I started paying attention, I realized sesame is everywhere in my kitchen.

Hummus is a meal for me. Not a side. Not a dip. A meal. A bowl of good hummus — tahini-forward, bright with lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, maybe some za’atar on top — and I’m done. That’s dinner.

Sesame bagels are my second favorite bagel, right behind everything. Which, if you think about it, also has sesame on it. So sesame is really my number one — it just shares the top spot with poppy and garlic.

Trader Joe’s makes these dark chocolate peanut butter cups with sesame. The first time I tried one, I thought — this tastes like peanut butter. And that’s because sesame paste and peanut butter share a similar roasted, nutty profile. The chocolate and the sesame play together the same way chocolate and peanut play together. Same lane. Different vehicle.

And then there are the Sesame Dream cookies. Thin, crisp, shatteringly crunchy — the kind of crunch that baking powder simply cannot produce. That’s because they’re made with baking ammonia.

The Leavener Nobody Knows

Baking ammonia — ammonium bicarbonate — is one of the oldest leavening agents in existence. It predates baking soda and baking powder by centuries. When heated, it decomposes into three gases that escape completely during baking, leaving behind a crispness that nothing else replicates.

It only works in thin, dry baked goods — cookies, crackers, wafers. Anything thick traps the ammonia and you’ll taste it. But in something thin? It produces a glass-like snap that you feel in your teeth.

I recently made a commitment: no more store-bought crackers. If I want them, I have to bake them. I haven’t baked them yet. But baking ammonia is the ingredient that’s going to get me there. Sesame crackers, thin as a window, crisp as the first bite of autumn.

The B-Side just wrote the cracker into existence. Now I have to make them.

Open

Five thousand years. Five continents. A seed that unlocks itself when it’s ready. An oil that carries its own protection. A paste that splits into two traditions depending on which kitchen it lands in. A leavener most people have never heard of. And a cracker I owe myself.

Open sesame isn’t just a phrase from a folktale. It’s an invitation. Look closer at the thing you’ve been walking past your whole life. There’s a cave full of treasure inside it.

You just have to say the words.

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