A sweet, dense confection made from sesame seeds (or sometimes other seeds or nuts) mixed with honey or sugar, popular in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine.
From Arabic حلوى (halwa), meaning 'sweet.' The word traveled through Turkish (helva) into European languages as trade routes brought this ancient confection westward from the Levant.
Halvah's been around for over 500 years and is so nutrient-dense that Middle Eastern soldiers once carried it as a portable energy source. It's also the reason English speakers sometimes argue about how to spell it—there's no 'official' English version!
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