Sesame

Sesame ( Sesamum indicum )

Sesame ( Sesamum indicum ) is a flowering plant in the family of sesame plants ( Pedaliaceae ). It is a widely cultivated plant and probably one of the oldest oil crops in the world.

Description

Sesame is an annual, herbaceous plant, the plant height of 10 to 120, rarely up to 180 centimeters reached and branched or unbranched occurs. The stems are truncated quadrangular, furrowed and bald hairy to finely and often studded with glands.

The very variable, glands occupied and finely hairy leaves are arranged opposite or alternate. The lower leaves are ovate to ovate - lanceolate, three-part pinnate or lobed, 4-20 cm long, 2-10 cm wide, rounded to obtuse at base, tapering to a point and serrated on the edge. The petioles are 3-11 inches long. The upper leaves are short stalked with 0.5 to 3 centimeters in length. The upper leaves are 0.5 to 2.5 centimeters width slender, entire and oblong- lanceolate to linear - lanceolate.

The flowers are white, pink or pink with darker drawing. The calyx is permanent, the hairy sepals are oblong and 2-5 millimeters long. The crown is 1.5 to 3.3 inches long, glabrous, the stamens. The anthers are 2-3 mm long. The ovary is 1 to 1.5 mm long and hairy, the fruit of an oblong square, finely hairy and studded with glands, to approach as tip rounded, 1.5 to 3.2 cm long and 6-7 mm wide capsule. The seeds are 2.5 and 3 millimeters long and 1.5 millimeters wide, black, brown or white.

Dissemination

Sesame is originally native to parts of India and Africa. It is grown today in tropical and subtropical areas.

History

The cultivated sesame comes from wild plants from South Asia, especially from the Malabar coast, the north-western India and Pakistani Punjab. These original wild varieties are Sesamum malabaricum or S. mulayanum called. At sites of the Indus Valley Civilization sesame was detected in archaeological layers of the 3rd millennium BC. Finds in Mesopotamia provided evidence of sesame before 2000 BC In the course of the 2nd millennium, sesame had spread to large parts of India. Suspicions that it was already early Sesame in Africa have not been confirmed. Egyptian finds are doubtful sesame in Egypt during the Greek period (4th - 1st century BC) is considered probable. The earliest traces of sesame further south in Africa were found in the Nubian site of Qasr Ibrim between 300 and 500 AD Otherwise seems to occur the plant only since the most recent time in Africa.

Use

The seeds, the oil and the root of sesame are used for therapeutic and culinary purposes. The oil-rich seeds of the sesame seeds are processed into sesame oil, which is used mainly for cooking - from roasted seeds pressed as a seasoning ingredient (eg Gomasio ,ごま塩jap / korean Kkaesogeum, 깨소금. ). The whole seeds are used - often roasted - for the refinement of baked goods and for seasoning food. Sesame is one of the selenium- rich foods ( 800 mg/100 g). Sesame is a strong allergen and must be specified as declarable -requiring allergen in processed foods even in the smallest amounts in the ingredients list.

Other dishes:

• Halva, a sweet, is used in the sesame as an ingredient
• Tahini, a paste of ground sesame seeds in the Arabian cuisine and important part of hummus.

As a remedy that serves from the ripe seeds by cold pressing or extraction and subsequent refining derived fatty oil. The active ingredients are 35-50% oleic acid and 35-50 % of linoleic acid, in addition, palmitic acid, stearic acid, lignans, sesamin, sesamolin, sterols, and vitamin E.

Pharmaceutically you use sesame oil in ointments. It facilitates the release of Hautschorf and crusts and generally has special care for dry skin. In injection solutions, it is as a solvent for fat-soluble drugs in use. The sesamol present in traces together with pyrethrum has a synergistic effect in insect control agents.

The terms used in Korean cuisine for wrapping Bulgogi, Galbi or Samgyeopsal " sesame leaves " ( 깻닢 ) are not leaves of the sesame plant, but the plant Perilla, referred because of the similar leaf shape as a " wild sesame ".

Economic Importance

Swell

• E. A. Bruce: Pedaliaceae. In: Flora of Tropical East Africa, 1953.
• Sesame on Gernot Katzer's Spice Pages
• Ingrid and Peter Schoenfelder: The new book of medicinal plants Franckh - Kosmos Verlag (2011), ISBN 978-3-440-12932-6