Tahini means "to grind", the same root as , "flour" in some dialects. There is also a sweet spread made from it called Halawa Taḥīniyya , which roughly translates as sweet Tahini. It is also known to be a type of Halva and sometimes has mashed or sliced pistachio pieces sprinkled inside or on top of it. Usually it is spread on bread and eaten as a quick snack. The word "tahini" appeared in English by the late 1930s. Plain, unprocessed sesame paste with no added ingredients is sometimes known as raw tahini. The oldest mention of sesame is in a
Red bean paste possible to remove the husk by sieving after cooking, but before sweetening, resulting in a red paste that is smoother and more homogeneous. In Japanese, a number of names are used to refer to red bean paste; these include , , and . Strictly speaking, the term "an" can refer to almost any sweet, edible, mashed paste, with referring specifically to the paste made with red beans, although without qualifiers red beans are assumed. Other common forms of "an" include , made from navy or other white beans, green beans, and , made from chestnuts. Similarly, the Chinese term "dòushā"