Sweet tahini rolls, a dedication to sesame

Some people don’t like sesame, or too much of it. It can be a pungent flavor. Sesame, for us, is an important seed. It is the foundation of tahini, a thick creamy condiment that is a major ingredient and base of hummus.

It is said that the sesame seed was developed into a wine some 4000 years ago. So it has been around for a very long time and there is proof of that. Ancient history has documented how sesame was cultivated 3500 years ago in the region of Tigris and Euphrates, of Mesopotamia; modern day Kurdistan and Iraq. It is closer to home than I even thought. The history of tahini itself, however, can date as far back as the 13th century. It is found and used in Israeli, Middle Eastern, African, Japanese and even Korean cuisines. The name itself translates to ground sesame. There is so much background to this seed and its transformation into a paste over the years so much so it even has mention of it during World War II and how Turkish pilots were claimed to have the best health, because of their tahini based diet. Since then, it began to appear in the US Market by the 1940s. It hasn’t been used to its absolute advantage for many decades in the West, seeing that it is primarily associated with hummus and as a garlicky lemony condiment, which are two of the traditional ways of eating tahini. There is so much that tahini is added to in our cuisines, it’s one of the most underrated, universal condiments. What most don’t realize is that this oil based paste is best matched with sweetness, as a counterpart. Hence these sweet rolls.

The Western market is slowly making that realization with chocolate tahinis and the like. They may be nice, but it is not tradition and in a way it is a form of food appropriation. Reading my posts you’ll know this is an important topic to me. I am not much a fan of taking something traditional and completely flipping it from its true form. Tahini, and our most important dip, hummus, are tokens of where we come from. They speak to our culture, and our family. It should not be taken lightly to appropriate in the modern world, and most definitely somewhere it does not even come from. I’m seeing these innovations through cool, hip brands that are mostly US based, and with at least one person who is Middle Eastern by way of Israel most of the time. I do think it’s nice that there’s a passion fueled through our condiments and food alike for some of the founders. They are advocates completely unassociated to our land and dive in and learn how to make something completely unnatural to them and be a great source of it, like Seed + Mill and Soom. They actually make good tahini, which is incredibly hard to come by outside of the Middle East. However, turning it into different flavors or colors is where I struggle to understand the familiarity. If you are buying tahini, it should be because you want tahini, a beige-like oily paste, and nothing else.

There are too many different tasting notes that you will only become familiar with what is good over time and testing a bunch of different brands. I would go as far as saying that trying it where it truly comes from is key, but that can't be as accessible for everyone, so realizing tastes across brands is most reliable nowadays. We are a difficult family to please when it comes to good tahini away from home. I think we are also a little biased, where we want to try and be as connected to our roots as possible, but it ain’t so easy between the Eastern and Western markets.

Tahini can be too dry, too sharp, too pastey, and now you’re thinking but isn’t it a paste? Yes, but it’s supposed to be creamy, smooth trickling over the back of a spoon type, not thick and gluey that sticks to the back of your throat forever. I have had way too many bad brands versus good ones here, and the irony is that the best ones I’ve had to date are made in the US such as, Whole Food’s own 365 brand, and the local likes of Seed + Mill, and Soom. Go figure. My biggest tip with tahini, which most don’t realize, is that there will always be a layer of oil that has separated from the paste and this is hard to avoid due to shelf life and shipping. They do say that when the oil separates it means the tahini wasn’t made correctly and hasn’t married all the elements. I argue that sitting on a grocery shelf and warehouses for perhaps months is bound to cause separation. The trick is to shake your bottle vigorously, and if the oil and paste mix together easily and well then you’ve got yourself a good creamy kind. That is before tasting it, which I’ll get to. If the separation remains after shaking, it is most likely bad in taste and form, and possibly even expired. However, expiration is rarely just the issue, it’s very easy to make bad tahini, and when done wrong, it is like having a terrible hummus, and let me say there is a lot of that out there too. Sorry. The next big tip is to make sure you check where the sesame is cultivated from. Always pick Ethiopian sesame seeds. Of all the dozens of sesame seeds that exist in this world, the Humera family is a richer, buttery more complex form. My final tip is taste. It should be nutty, earthy, not overly pungent, but with a tinge of bitterness. If it tastes unpleasant to you, it is definitely past its prime. It is like a nut butter, so it isn’t going to be sweet, but it isn’t salty either.

Picking the best consistency and taste is a journey, like most things in life. Some do prefer drier and thicker tahinis, but it isn’t the classic form. With that said, the right tahini is crucial to these rolls. They are the basis of the entire taste of this dessert. It felt like it was going to be a slippery creamy mess spreading the tahini over my dough, but it ended up being quite a smooth process and the tahini didn’t actually move that much once spread. The sweet combination comes with the cinnamon sugar mix that really accentuates those bold, nutty and earthy sesame flavors. It marries the flavors together to give you something balanced between savory and sweet. They really are perfect little buns. These pastry rounds are found in a lot of different Middle Eastern countries and perhaps adopted them from the Levant, with Israel and Palestine being a key producer of good tahini. They after all do eat tahini with absolutely everything.

A nod to my parents memories is eating bread dipped in tahini and then a date or grape syrup-like jam. It is a harmony of savory and sweet in your mouth, something still underrated with tahini, today. You can forget about the chocolate mass produced tahinis, instead enjoy it a more traditional way, where it is combined with sugar or syrup in baked goods like these rolls or banana breads, or as an additional condiment at the table with bread to scoop, spread and inhale. Tahini is a wonderful condiment that is becoming more and more famous in recent years, but it is still severely underrated in its uses outside of the Middle East. I urge you to start incorporating it into more foods as a condiment, side, or mixed in. It is a historical seed that has come a long way used in ancient medicine, wines, as an oil, and originates from my lands. It speaks to my heritage, but is a heroic symbol of the entire Middle East. It definitely helped put us on the map even more, and no one can take that away from us.