One morning, a cat I had never seen before was sitting at the kitchen window.

A long, soft, cream-colored coat. Amber eyes.
A cat who seemed to carry the wind of some faraway land.

"Who are you?"

The cat blinked slowly and looked out the window.
And in the direction of her gaze, I sensed a city I did not know.

When I came to, I was standing on a cobbled street where a dry wind was blowing.

The sky was a deep blue. The walls were the color of sun-baked earth.
From somewhere drifted a scent that was sweet and just a little spicy.

Leila walked ahead.
She never looked back. And yet she was always waiting.
As if to say "Come along," she gave her tail a little flick.

Around the corner lay a market.

Brightly colored cloths hung from above,
and light filtered down like sun through leaves.

Spices were heaped up in little mountains.
Red, yellow, brown, green — each one giving off its own scent.

The gold of saffron. The earthy warmth of cumin.
The vivid yellow of turmeric, so bright it seemed it might stain your fingertips.

Leila came to a sudden stop in front of a spice seller's stall.

The shopkeeper held out a small silver dish.

On the dish lay petals.
Dried petals of a deep crimson.

"It's rose. Go on, taste it."

—What? Eat a rose?

The kind you arrange in a vase?

The old man laughed.
"In this country, roses have been food for a thousand years."

Nervously, I placed a single petal on my tongue.

It unfurled there,
and a sweet fragrance rose all the way to the back of my nose.

None of the harsh sharpness of rose perfume.
Something softer, a sweetness that felt somehow nostalgic.

"It's delicious…"

At my feet, Leila narrowed her eyes in contentment.

The old man showed me around the market.

Sweets kneaded with rose petals.
Pistachio confections perfumed with rose water.
Tea with a spoonful of rose jam floating on top.

"You know, we cook with rose, too."

Crushed rose petals and spices in a slow-braised lamb.
A generous spread of rose jam over fresh-baked bread.

Here, the rose had become the very pillar of a dish's fragrance.
Not a flower. An ingredient.

Deep in the market stood a small eatery.
A woman was simmering something in a great pot.

"Sit down. Stay and eat."

What she set on the table was
a stew of rose and lamb, scattered with pomegranate seeds.

At the first mouthful, I closed my eyes.

The fragrance of rose wrapped softly around the richness of the lamb.
The tartness of the pomegranate gave that softness its outline.

I had never known a taste like this.
And yet, though I had never known it, it felt somehow like coming home.

Leila had curled up beneath my chair,
as if to say, "See? Isn't it good?"

On the way home, the market's old shopkeeper wrapped up some rose petals for me.

"Take these with you. You can make it in your own country, too."

A sweet scent rose from the paper parcel.
I wanted to carry it home, fragrance and all.
To taste it once more, in my own kitchen.

Leila suddenly stopped.
Just once more, she turned to look back at the market.

And then she faced forward again, and walked on.

I came back to Japan.
The same old kitchen. The same old window.

But I couldn't forget the scent of that rose.

So I went looking into the culture of "eating roses."

And I found it wasn't only in Persia.

In China, an edible rose called meigui
has been lovingly cultivated for more than a thousand years, since the Tang dynasty.

A rose grown to be eaten, used in cooking and tea since ancient times.

And then something surprised me even more.

That same meigui was being grown in Japan, too —
in a quiet town near the sea, in Toyama.

A flower called Edible Rose (食香バラ®),
raised without pesticides and picked carefully, one bloom at a time.

When I touched a petal, it was just as soft as the one I had met in the Persian market,
and it carried the very same sweet fragrance.

Persia, China, and Japan.
Distant lands, joined together by a single petal.

I laid out on the table all the spices I had brought back from that market.

Sel de Guérande. Allspice. Bay leaf.
Tomato powder.
And the petals of Toyama's Edible Rose.

The memory of a journey, and the ingredients of Japan.
Blending them little by little, checking the scent each time.

"Ah — this is it."

It wasn't quite the taste of that eatery's cook.
But it was a scent that brought the memory of walking through that market gently flooding back.

And so it became a single seasoning.

Tonight's dinner was a pan-seared fish.

Usually just salt and pepper.
But today, a single shake of that seasoning.

At the scent rising from the pan, the words slipped out before I could stop them.

"…This is Persia."

The sweet fragrance of rose mingled with the smell of the searing fish,
and for an instant, the kitchen became that market again.

I took a bite.

The tender flesh of the fish, with all the flourish of the rose.
And beneath the saltiness of the Sel de Guérande, a gentle sweetness.

Not a copy of a Persian dish.
A new taste, one that only Japanese fish could give.

The moment the memory of a journey and my own table came together.

"Delicious. This is a new kind of 'delicious.'"

At the window sat Leila.

She had come back at some point without my noticing.
In the light of the setting sun, her cream-colored coat glowed the color of roses.

"Will you take me away again?"

Leila blinked slowly.

Beyond the window, I sensed a city I did not know.
What flavor would I meet next, I wondered.