Tahina factory....amazing place. Fresh tahina is nothing like the stuff you get in stores. There are people literally queued up the road to get it, Amedi. November 2019
Transformational
Late in the day after my visit to Amedi [see: Amedi] with Hadi and Dilovan, we slowly descended from that table top city to the valley below. Hadi wanted to pick up some tahina (sesame paste) for his mom and the stuff made in Amedi was locally well known. Below the fortress city, beside a tree-line rushing creek with an old stone bridge crossing dating back to the Ottomans, we came upon a parking area filled with cars. By the time we left, they were actually queueing along the road to enter. I was happy we got there early.
We got out of the car and the first thing that hit me was the smell - the air was filled with the satisfying odor of roasted sesame seeds. Wow. The only similar feeling I knew was driving by a chocolate factory. It brought back my youth, our family visits to Hershey, and the omnipresent smell of chocolate in the air. Roasted sesame seeds smelled comfortingly good! I explored the outside of the "factory" and took a few photos in the remaining light. The setting was idyllic.
We went inside a ramshackle building, not as clean as I would have hoped - but we were in the mountains, and Hadi placed his order. The temperatures were dropping rapidly after sunset and there was a chill in the air. We were invited by the hearth to warm ourselves with some tea. In front of us, in a huge "pizza oven" looking fireplace sesame seeds were roasting on a broad wooden paddle. That was the source of the glorious smell. After roasting, the seeds were gathered and put into a grindstone mill that just churned out tahina nonstop. When the perpetual-motion grindstone was not fulfilling individual customer orders, the buttery substance dropped into a huge vat which was later scooped out, the contents jarred and sold. Hadi's order was freshly ground - a spout dribbled out the purchased amount into a jar to take home to his mom.
Coffee from Italy - it does taste different. Fresh-made tahina (I would guess from anywhere) is just as transformational. It tasted nothing like what I had tried before. The owners slathered fresh-ground tahina on a piece of flatbread and offered me some to taste with the tea. I think I actually shouted "oh my God" (even with my mouth full). It was THAT delicious.
As we sat by the sesame roasting hearth, a Kurdish woman of my age seated nearby started asking me questions via my student-interpreters. They were howling with laughter as her questions were getting increasingly personal. I didn't really care - she had no ill-intent. As it turns out, Samina was my neighbor back in Duhok. She had seen me on the street and was extremely curious about my life and why I was living in Duhok. After that chance meeting in Amedi, I actually noticed her near my place in Duhok. When I was out shopping in the neighborhood, I often greeted her. It turns out she was locally well-known there, too. Apparently, I had got her stamp of approval (thank God). Life is made up of so many coincidences that I sometimes cannot help but believe they really are pre-ordained in some way.
So it was that I discovered the glory of freshly ground tahina below the ancient citadel of Amedi in the Kurdish region of Iraq. It spoiled me for any of that yummy sesame paste in the future, but I didn't care. Sitting by the fire on an early autumn evening in the mountains of Iraq with my students, drinking tea, being interrogated by an exuberant Kurdish woman, and enjoying every bite of bread with fresh-ground tahina is probably one of my best memories of Iraqi Kurdistan.