  tahini  (also tahina ; ) is a paste made from ground, hulled sesame seeds used in north african, greek, turkish, and middle eastern cuisine. tahini is served as a dip on its own or as a major component of hummus, baba ghanoush, and halva. ==etymology== tahini is a loanword from  , or more accurately  , is derived from the root   which as a verb   means "to grind", the same root as  , "flour" in some dialects. the standard arabic spelling  is transliterated properly as . the last syllable is pronounced , depending on the region where the speaker is from. in levantine arabic dialects, however, the last syllable is generally pronounced . since most 19th and early 20th century middle eastern immigrants to english-speaking countries were christians from syria, lebanon, and palestine, this might be the origin of the english usage of the final /i/. the source language could also be greek since tahini in greek is called precisely ÏÎ±ÏÎ¯Î½Î¹ (tahini). the word "tahini" appears in english by the late 1930s.treasury decisions under customs and other laws, 1938, p. 1080 snippet plain, unprocessed sesame paste with no added ingredients is sometimes known as "raw tahini". ==history== the oldest mention of sesame is in a cuneiform document written 4,000 years ago that describes the custom of serving the gods sesame wine. the historian herodotus writes about the cultivation of sesame 3,500 years ago in the region of the tigris and euphrates rivers. it was mainly used as 
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