Sesame

“ The gift of sesame seeds is a very superior one. It produces everlasting merit. O foremost of regenerate ones, one should make gifts of as much sesame as one can. By making gifts of sesame every day, one is sure to attain the fruition of one's every wish. The gift of sesame at Sraddhas is applauded. Verily the gift of sesame is a very superior one. Do thou make gifts of sesame unto the Brahmanas according to the rites ordained in the scriptures. ”

“ The Greek patrons liked her for the same reason, and it was no longer a novelty for her to see Jimmy coming toward her with slices of sesame seed and honey, or a bit of sugar-dusted pastry for her delight, the gift of one of the diners on the other side of the green curtains. ”

“ We know not broiled nor boiled nor aught else of the kind.” “We also fry it in olive-oil and oil of sesame [269] .” “How should we come by olive-oil and oil of sesame in the sea? Verily we know nothing of that thou namest.” “True, but O my brother, thou hast shown me many cities; yet hast thou not shown me thine own city.” “As for mine own city, we passed it a long way, for it is near the land whence we came, and I left it and came with thee hither, thinking only to divert thee with the sight of the greater cities of the sea.” ”

“ The seed of this plant was offered, fried, at the beginning of the second course, and eaten with honey. [X_1] Sometimes it was sprinkled on the crust of a kind of household bread, covered with white of eggs. [X_2] Some of it was also put into the panada, or pap, intended for children [X_3] —perhaps to make them sleep the sooner.
SESAME.
This seed was used in nearly the same manner as the poppy, and it occupied a distinguished rank among the numerous dainties served at dessert. [X_4] Certain round and light cakes were covered with this seed. [X_5] The Romans brought sesame from Egypt. ”

“ During the winter, corn is in the blade; but in the spring winter corn throws out a tall stem. As for millet and panic, they grow with a jointed and grooved103 stalk, while sesame has a stem resembling that of fennel-giant. The fruit of all these seeds is either contained in an ear, as in wheat and barley, for instance, and protected from the attacks of birds and small animals by a prickly beard bristling like so many palisades; or else it is enclosed in pods, as in the leguminous plants, or in capsules, as in sesame and the poppy. ”

“ If bargaining in sesame—
Her hulled grains for the unhulled kind—
Has some good reason in her mind."
"So," said Wide-Bottom, "he surely derives this vigor in jumping from the smell of his hoard." And he continued: "Do you know his manner of attack?" "Yes, holy sir, I do," answered Crop-Ear. "He comes not alone, but with a school of mice." ”

“ I have to speak, of such things; for, indeed, too much of what I have said about women has been said in faith only. A wise and lovely English lady told me, when 'Sesame and Lilies' first appeared, that she was sure the 'Sesame' would be useful, but that in the 'Lilies' I had been writing of what I knew nothing about. Which was in a measure too true, and also that it is more partial than my writings are usually: for as Ellesmere spoke his speech on the ⸻ intervention, not, indeed, otherwise than he felt, but yet altogether for the sake of Gretchen, so I wrote the 'Lilies' to please one girl ”

“ The sesame seed has naturally the oil inherent in it, and the body has also its incidents connatural with it; he who is not subject to his bodily accidents, is able to sever the wind and air with his sword. ”

“ As soon as the nine furrows are drawn, the crowd of spectators rushes in and scrambles for the seed which has just been sown, believing that, mixed with the seed-rice, it will ensure a plentiful crop. Then the oxen are unyoked, and rice, maize, sesame, sago, bananas, sugar-cane, melons, and so on, are set before them; whatever they eat first will, it is thought, be dear in the year following, though some people interpret the omen in the opposite sense. During this time the temporary king stands leaning against a tree with his right foot resting on his left knee. ”

“ It was an enormous pie, composed in the following manner:—Thirty pounds of fine flour being kneaded with five pounds and a half of oil of sesame, and divided into two equal portions, one of these was spread upon a round tray of copper, about four spans in diameter. Upon this were placed three lambs, stuffed with pounded meat fried with oil of sesame and ground pistachio-nuts, and various hot aromatics, such as pepper, ginger, cinnamon, mastic, coriander-seed, cumin-seed, cardamom, nut [or nutmeg?] , &c. These were then sprinkled with rose-water infused with musk ”

“ A mouse and an ichneumon once dwelt in the house of a peasant who was very poor; and when one of his friends sickened, the doctor prescribed him husked sesame. So the hind sought of one of his comrades sesame to be husked by way of healing the sick man ”

“ In the Central District of Busoga, Central Africa, when a woman has given birth to twins, the people of her clan do not sow any seed until the twins have been brought to the field. A pot of cooked grain is set before the children with a cake of sesame and all the seed that is to be sown. ”

“ The mill grinds twice a day; a fresh man and team being employed on each occasion. When sesame [Pg 536] oil is to be made, about seventy seers measure, or two and a half bushels of seeds are thrown in; to this ten seers, or two quarts and three-quarters of water, are gradually added; this on the continuance of the grinding, which lasts in all six hours, unites with the fibrous portion of the seeds, and forms a cake, which, when removed, leaves the oil clean and pure at the bottom of the mortar. From this it is taken out by a coco-nut shell cup, on the pestle being withdrawn. ”

“ Each genus has only a small number of species. Sesamum, in the widest sense of the name,2099 has ten, all African except perhaps the cultivated species whose origin we are about to seek. The latter forms alone the true genus Sesamum, which is a section in Bentham and Hooker’s work. Botanical analogy points to an African origin, but the area of a considerable number of plants is known to extend from the south of Asia into Africa. Sesame has two races, the one with black, the other with white seed, and several varieties differing in the shape of the leaf. ”

“ The seeds of sesame often sow themselves outside plantations, and more or less naturalize the species. This has been observed in regions very remote one from the [Pg 420] other; for instance, in India, the Sunda Isles, Egypt, and even in the West India Islands, where its cultivation is certainly of modern introduction.2100 This is perhaps the reason that no author asserts he has found it in a wild state except Blume,2101 a trustworthy observer, who mentions a variety with redder flowers than usual growing in the mountains of Java. ”

“ Mother was also busy preparing our lunch. For this she got up very early in the morning and boiled rice, which she made into triangular, round, or square masses, speckled with burned sesame seeds. She packed them in several lacquered boxes, with fresh pickles and cooked vegetables. We relied on our clams for chief dishes; so some cooking [Pg 85] utensils were necessary. Also some tea and a teapot, cups and dishes, together with chop-sticks and toothpicks, even. ”

“ They gave her a piece of coconut [126] husk with a hole in it, and a perforated coconut shell, and filled the former with sesame seeds, and the latter with ashes on which was placed burning charcoal. She hurried home with these, being warned by the Parrot that the Rākshasī was coming.
When the Rākshasī asked her daughters who had been to the house, they replied that the female Crow’s girl had taken some fire, and that there would be sesame and ashes along the path by which she had gone. The Rākshasī ran along it, found the door shut, and said, “Mother has come. Father has come. ”

“ The comm. says only that it is addressed to the garment when the dead man is wrapped up.
32. The grains became a milch-cow; the sesame became her calf; upon her, unexhausted, one lives in Yama's realm.
The mss. are a little at variance as to the accent of tilo ‘bhavat; but the majority give tilò, which is accepted in both editions. The comm. reads at the end jīvāti. The ritual application of this verse and its successor was given with that of 3. 69 above; the comm. says here that with vss. 32-34 grains mingled with sesame are put upon the bones. The first pāda is one syllable short. ”

“ The blade of the wheat-plant and barley is often four fingers in breadth. As for millet and the sesame, I shall not say to what height they grow, though within my own knowledge, for I am not ignorant that what I have already written concerning the fruitfulness of Babylonia, must seem incredible to those who have never visited the country.... Palm trees grow in great numbers over the whole of the flat country, mostly of the kind that bears fruit, and this fruit supplies them with bread, wine and honey. ”

“ At the dictation of the babu of Thenganyenam, I had jotted down a few vital words of Siamese. When conversation lagged, I put this newly-acquired vocabulary to the test by calling for food. The head man growled, the female floated in once more and placed at our feet a small washtub of boiled rice.
422Now this Oriental staff of life is not without its virtues; but to eat one’s fill of the tasteless stuff without any “trimmings” whatever is rather a pleasureless task. I dragged out my notebook and again ran my eyes down the list of Siamese words. Neither currie nor chicken was represented. ”

“ My Siamese teacher, a man about forty years old, says that those who live simply on rice, with a little salt, enjoy better health, and can endure a greater amount of labor, than those who live in any other way. * * * [Pg 197] The great body of the Siamese use no flesh, except fish. Of this they generally eat a very little, with their rice. ”

“ The Siamese are so accustomed to these highly flavoured dishes that they would look upon a meal of turkey and plum-pudding as utterly tasteless and insipid. One of the sauces in common use contains chillies, stale prawns, black pepper, garlic, onions, citron-juice, ginger, and brine!
When the members of the family sit down to take a meal, they squat on the floor. A big bowl of rice is placed in the centre of the ring, and round it are arranged smaller basins of curry. Everybody helps himself, so that the fastest eater gets the biggest share. ”

“ Some were not much more than three feet long, with one Siamese squeezed in between piles of rice, bananas, or fish; others hold fifteen people, and are so crowded that one can hardly see the edge of the boat, which is a hollow palm-tree.... ”

“ If a man takes the outer covering of sesamum seeds, and soaks them with the eggs of sparrows, and then, having boiled them in milk, mixed with sugar and ghee, along with the fruits of the trapa bispinosa and the kasurika plant, and adding to it the flour of wheat and beans, and then drinks this composition, he is said to be able to enjoy many women. ”

“ The Children Siamese children can only be described in the language that an English mother uses about her own small ones as they tumble over one another in the nursery or in the garden—they are just "little dears." ”

“ There appeared a great paucity even of fish. Rice they seemed to have in abundance. They were well fed, and stout, but rather below the middle stature. They cut the hair close to the head, leaving a short tuft on the forehead, which they comb backward. There is no difference in this respect between the men and women, both cutting the hair off short. Europeans are not more attentive to render their teeth white, than the Siamese are to make them black. Amongst them black teeth only are considered beautiful, and it must be allowed that they succeed perfectly well in this species of ornament. ”

“ Currants may be added. It may be boiled in a mould, an hour. Indian corn flour makes good puddings the same way; and there are preparations of Indian corn, such as soujie, semolina, and golden polenta, which may be dressed in the same way.
Semolina Pudding.
Mix 2 oz. of semolina quite smooth, with a little cold milk, then pour over it a pint of boiled milk, and sweeten to your taste, then put it into a saucepan, and keep stirring till it boils, take it off the fire, and stir till only lukewarm; add a slice of butter, the yolks of 4 eggs, the juice of a lemon, and a wine-glassful of brandy. ”

“ To keep them in good humour a bundle of shavings of a fruit-tree and a little basket are always hung in the granary. An egg and a small vessel containing the juice of sugar-cane are attached as offerings to the bundle of shavings, and the basket contains a sacred mat, which is used at fetching the rice. When the housewife comes to fetch rice from the granary, she pours juice of the sugar-cane on the egg, takes the sacred mat from the basket, spreads it on the ground, lays a stalk of rice on it, and explains to the souls of the rice the object of her coming. ”

“ Musai was in need of seed-rice and silkworms’ eggs. The past season had been an unfortunate one for him, and it was necessary for him to have these. Knowing that his brother had an abundance of good rice-seed and splendid eggs, he begged him to lend him some. ”

“ The food and water are given to satisfy the hunger and thirst of the soul, while the sesamum is supposed to give it coolness and quench its heat. On the tenth day the ashes are thrown into a river. The beard of a boy whose father is alive is shaved for the first time before his marriage. Children are tattooed with a mark on the forehead within three months of birth, and this serves as a sect mark. ”

“ The helmsman and his mate, who are masters of the junk, and country-born Portuguese, eat by themselves in the style of the Siamese. The [Pg 169] crew clan together in eating according to their nameless distinctions. Their main dependence is rice and fish. The former they eat out of the bark of a plantain tree rolled up at the sides and one end in the shape of a scoop shovel, or out of a most filthy-looking basket or cocoanut shell. There are three females on board who eat in the hold, where they remain almost constantly from morning to night. ”