benne

Etymology

From Malay bene, or possibly from Wolof or Eastern Maninkakan.

noun

1. (chiefly attributive) Sesame.
   benne oil; benne seed
   Benne (sesame) seeds were secretly brought to America on the slave ships by black women who had used them in their native cooking. Benne seed cookies and candy were made by black cooks in Charleston and other lowcountry South Carolina locations. 2003, Carole Marsh, The Kitchen House: How Yesterday's Black Women Created Today's Most Popular & Famous American Foods!, page 15
   For example, Rosanna Williams recounted that her African-born father would "plant mostly benne and rice." Emma Hunter also remembered that her grandmother planted benne. 2010, Frederick C. Knight, Working the Diaspora: The Impact of African Labor on the Anglo-American World, 1650—1850, page 62
   A window on the small-scale world of sesame oil production and benne cake livestock feeding is found in the pages of Thomas Walter Peyre's plantation journal (1834–59) at the South Carolina Historical Society.[…]African Anerican farming of benne can be imputed only by anecdotal reports, yet numerous records attest to benne’s importance in the slave diet. Indeed, a complex benne cookery adapted from African practices was recorded. 2013, David S. Shields, “Chapter 3: Prospecting for Oil”, in John T. Edge, Elizabeth S. D. Engelhardt, Ted Ownby, editors, The Larder: Food Studies Methods from the American South, page 65