Who would have thought that an entire cook­book could be devot­ed to one ingre­di­ent? Such is the case with Sesame: Glob­al Recipes & Sto­ries of an Ancient Seed. First-time cook­book author Rachel Simons has assem­bled more than eighty unique recipes using every­thing from toast­ed sesame seeds and sesame oil to the sesame paste tahi­ni and the fudge-like can­dy hal­va (mean­ing ​“sweet” in Ara­bic). The book show­cas­es many recipes from Simons her­self, as well as the friends (includ­ing indus­try stal­warts such as Yotam Ottolenghi and Mol­ly Yeh) she has made in her time as the co-own­er of the Seed + Mill shop in New York City’s Chelsea Market.

The Seed + Mill brand, which Simons has run along­side busi­ness part­ners Lisa Mendel­son and Mon­i­ca Mole­naar since 2016, sells tahi­ni paste and hal­va in pas­tel-col­ored pack­ages to near­ly 2,000 stock­ists across the US and around the world. Sesame aims to go fur­ther, telling the sto­ry of the sesame seed’s ​“migra­tion, sur­vival and adap­ta­tion,” which is a kind of through­line for Simons, who brings her mul­ti­cul­tur­al upbring­ing to the cook­book. Her Jew­ish ances­tors were expelled from their homes dur­ing the Span­ish inqui­si­tion and fled to Czecho­slo­va­kia; after sur­viv­ing the Holo­caust, they then left for Bul­awayo, Zim­bab­we. Simons her­self grew up in Aus­tralia before lat­er mov­ing to New York as an adult. 

The sesame seed also has a long his­to­ry, dat­ing back more than five thou­sand years to the Indi­an sub­con­ti­nent, where it was one of the first oilseed crops. The plant can grow up to three feet tall, pro­duc­ing pods that can con­tain up to 100 seeds each. It sim­ply needs a hot, dry cli­mate to thrive. Despite the sesame seed’s sta­tus as a well-known ingre­di­ent, when open­ing Seed + Mill, Simons and her co-founders won­dered if this food cat­e­go­ry was a bit niche — even in a city as mul­ti­cul­tur­al as New York, sig­nage remains to this day spec­i­fy­ing the pho­net­ic pro­nun­ci­a­tion of tahini.

But the cook­book is emi­nent­ly approach­able; it is divid­ed into six sec­tions — break­fast, sea­son­ings and sauces, dips and snacks, sal­ads and veg­eta­bles sides, mains, and desserts — and is full of tips, sto­ries, and sug­ges­tions. The pho­tog­ra­phy is beau­ti­ful, and all of the recipes feel sim­ply designed and easy to exe­cute; these range from the clas­sic — vari­a­tions on hum­mus, of course, and hal­va — to more unique fare such as car­rot and tahi­ni dip, made because it reminds Simons of the sweet­ened car­rot dish tzimmes, which is tra­di­tion­al­ly served at Rosh Hashanah. The book also fea­tures clas­sics of Jew­ish cui­sine, such as sweet and salty chal­lah, and hon­ey cake, as well as inter­na­tion­al favorites such as ramen. Sesame is an excel­lent all-rounder, equal­ly suit­able for expe­ri­enced home cooks as for adven­tur­ous souls look­ing to try some­thing new.