What's remarkable is how many separate culinary traditions independently recognized this ingredient and built it into their food culture — not as a trend, but as a staple.

In East Asia, black sesame is woven into the everyday. Ground black sesame and rice form zhimahu, a Chinese dessert and breakfast dish. In Japan, tan and black sesame seed varieties are roasted and used to make gomashio, a seasoning, and whole seeds appear in many salads and baked snacks. In Korea, roasted sesame seeds and oil season rice, soups, and banchan with a depth that's hard to replicate with anything else.

The Middle East built an entire culinary architecture around sesame paste. Sesame seeds are made into tahini, used in hummus and other preparations, and into halvah, a confection that is approximately half sesame paste, considered a high-energy food across the region. Sesame is also a component of za'atar, the Levantine spice blend of oregano, thyme, sumac, and toasted sesame that is popular throughout the Middle East. 

In Africa, sesame has roots that arguably run deeper than anywhere. Sesamum has many species, most of them wild and native to sub-Saharan Africa. The culinary legacy reflects that. In Togo, sesame seeds are a main soup ingredient. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo and northern Angola, wangila is a traditional dish of ground sesame often served with smoked fish. In East Africa, sesame is known as simsim and used throughout regional cuisine. The word "benne," still used in the American South to refer to sesame, comes from the West African Bambara and Wolof languages, carried to the United States through the slave trade. 

When a single ingredient shows up independently across that many cultures and that many centuries, it's worth asking why.