Have you ever seen one?

The sesame plant is an annual herb of the Pedaliacae family. Its exact origins are unknown, though some claim it was the East Indies where it is also native. Now it is found growing in most tropical, subtropical, and southern temperate areas of the world.

Sesame seeds grow on a plant that has a hairy single stalk, though some do have branches. The average plant grows two to four feet high, some even up to 9 feet in height The plant blossoms with white, pink or purplish flowers that develop into elongated pods containing numerous seeds stacked horizontally, one on top of the other, within the pod. The pear-shaped seed itself is encased in a fibrous hull that offers a range of color from light tan to red, brown, and even black. Hulled seeds, those with the hulls removed, are an ivory white.

Those unfamiliar with sesame seeds are surprised that such a tiny, flat seed, only 1/8 inch in length and 1/20th of an inch thick, can be endowed with such depth of flavor. In its raw form, it is frequently described as delicately sweet and nutty. When toasted it takes on the flavor of roasted peanuts with unique overtones.

In harvesting the sesame seeds, first the plant stalks are cut and stacked vertically. Each stalk is then shaken over a cloth to catch the seeds that fly out from the mature pods.

Harvesting was a laborious task that was mostly done by hand. Since the mature seedpods are quite fragile and will burst open easily, scattering the seeds to the ground, harvesting could not be done by machine until recently. In the middle of the 20th century, horticulturists developed a hybrid variety of sesame that does not scatter, and now some of the harvesting is a machine process, though too costly to be widely used.

Sesame seeds tend to be a commercial crop where labor is inexpensive and much of the harvesting is still done by hand. Most of today's commercially produced sesame seeds are grown throughout Central America, Mexico, and the People's Republic of China, with India and Africa a close second.

In the United States, sesame seeds are grown in Arizona and Texas. For the U.S. to become a major producer, less fragile varieties of sesame seeds will have to be developed on a large scale so machine harvesting can keep the prices competitive with the present market.