Assyrian cuisine tomato sauce and baked in the oven, not unlike the Levantine version of moussaka), "shamakhshi" (fried rolled eggplant stuffed with ground beef in tomato sauce), "Dolma" (rice and tomato sauce stuffed in grape leaves, cabbage, various peppers, zucchini, and eggplant), "Masgouf" (fish spiced with olive oil, salt, and turmeric, topped with tomatoes, potatoes, and onions then oven-baked) and "Lahmacun" (flatbread topped with ground beef, tomato paste, spices, and onions). Sesame seeds are important to the cuisine and used to make tahini, there is even an Assyrian folk tale about the gods drinking sesame wine on the night before they created
Anchovy paste been described as a "precursor to anchovy paste". Anchovy paste has also been described as a "descendant of garum". Anchovy paste is a mass-produced product, and is sometimes produced using leftover anchovies from anchovy packing facilities that are processed, mixed with additional ingredients, and packaged into tubes. Circa the early 1900s, food colouring was sometimes used in commercial preparations of the paste. Today, anchovy paste is a major export product of Morocco. Gentleman's Relish is a brand of mass-produced spiced anchovy paste that was introduced in England in 1828. Other companies also produce and purvey prepared anchovy paste, such as