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II.E.4 - Sesame

from II.E - Animal, Marine, and Vegetable Oils

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Dorothea Bedigian
Edited by
Kenneth F. Kiple  and
Kriemhild Coneè Ornelas
Kenneth F. Kiple
Affiliation:
Bowling Green State University, Ohio
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Summary

Botanical Description

Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) belongs to the Pedaliaceae, a small family of about 15 genera and 60 species of annual and perennial herbs. These occur mainly in the Old World tropics and subtropics, with the greatest number in Africa (Purseglove 1968). Sesame is a crop of hot, dry climates, grown for its oil and protein-rich seeds. The oil is valued for its stability, color, nutty flavor, and resistance to rancidity.

A large number of cultivars are known (Bedigian, Smyth, and Harlan 1986). These differ in their maturation time, degree of branching, leaf shape and color, and number of flowers per leaf axil, which may be 1 or 3. The locules in the capsule usually number 4 or 8. The known cultivars also vary in length of capsule, in intensity of flower color, and especially in seed color, which ranges from pure white to black, with intervening shades of ivory, beige, tan, yellow, brown, red, and gray. The seeds are about 3 millimeters long and have a flattened pear shape. The capsules open automatically when dry, causing the seed to scatter.

Production

Sesame is usually grown as a rain-fed crop. It has many agricultural advantages: It sets seed and yields relatively well under high temperatures, it is tolerant of drought, and it does reasonably well on poor soils. It is very sensitive to day length and is intolerant of waterlogging. The major obstacle to the expansion of sesame is its habit of shattering: The absence of nonshattering cultivars, suitable for machine harvest, results in labor-intensive harvest seasons. Because of this obstacle, the crop is not suitable for large-scale commercial production (although breeding for non-shattering traits has been ongoing). Instead, sesame has typically been grown on a small scale for local consumption or in places where labor is cheap.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge World History of Food , pp. 411 - 421
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2000

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