Leila and the Rose Market

One morning, a cat I had never seen before was sitting on the kitchen windowsill.

Long, soft, cream-colored fur. Amber eyes.
A cat who seemed to carry the wind of some faraway country.

"Who are you?"

The cat blinked slowly and looked out the window.
And beyond that gaze, I could feel the presence of an unknown city.

Before I knew it, I was standing in a town of cobblestones, where a dry wind blew.

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

Leila walked ahead.
She never looked back. But she was waiting, all the same.
She swayed her tail, as if to say, "Come along."

Around the corner was a market.

Cloths of every color hung down from the ceiling,
and light fell through them like sunshine through leaves.

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

The gold of saffron. The earthy warmth of cumin.
Turmeric so bright a yellow it might dye your fingertips.

Leila stopped short in front of a spice seller's stall.

The shopkeeper held out a small silver dish.

On the dish, petals.
Deep crimson, dried petals.

"Roses. Go on, taste them."

...What? Eat... roses?

The kind of roses you put in a vase?

The old man laughed.
"In this country, we've been eating roses for a thousand years."

Nervously, I placed a single petal on my tongue.

The petal unfurled in my mouth,
and a sweet fragrance rose all the way up behind my nose.

There was none of the sharpness of rose perfume.
It was softer than that — a sweetness that felt somehow nostalgic.

"It's delicious..."

At my feet, Leila narrowed her eyes, looking pleased.

The old man showed me around the market.

Candy made with rose petals folded in.
Pistachio sweets scented with rose water.
Tea with rose jam floating on top.

"You can cook with roses, too, you know."

Lamb stewed with crushed rose petals and spices.
Fresh-baked bread spread thick with rose jam.

Here, the rose was a "pillar of fragrance" in the cooking.
Not a flower. An ingredient.

At the back of the market was a little eatery.
An old woman was simmering something in a great big 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 very first bite, I closed my eyes.

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

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

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

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

"Take them home. You can make this in your country, too."

A sweet fragrance rose from the paper parcel.
I wanted to carry this scent home with me, all of it.
To taste that flavor once more, in my own kitchen.

Leila stopped, all of a sudden.
Just once more, she turned and looked back at the market.

And then she faced forward again, and walked on.

I came home to Japan.
The same old kitchen. The same old windowsill.

But I couldn't forget the scent of those roses.

So I looked into the "culture of eating roses."

And it turned out Persia wasn't the only place.

In China, an edible rose called meigui (玫瑰)
has been lovingly grown for over a thousand years, since the Tang dynasty.

A rose for eating, used in cooking and tea since ancient times.

And there was something that surprised me even more.

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

A flower grown without pesticides, picked carefully by hand, one bloom at a time —
a flower with the name Edible Rose (食香バラ®).

When I touched the petals, they were just as soft as the ones I had met
in the Persian market, and carried the very same sweet scent.

Persia, and China, and Japan.
Faraway countries, joined together by a single petal.

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

Guérande salt. Allspice. Bay leaf.
Tomato powder.
And the petals of the Edible Rose from Toyama.

Memories of the journey, and ingredients from Japan.
Mixing a little at a time, checking the fragrance.

"Ah — this is it."

It wasn't the same as the old woman's dish at that eatery.
But it was a scent that brought the memory of walking that market gently flooding back.

And so it became a single seasoning.

Tonight's dinner: a pan-seared fish.

Usually it's just salt and pepper.
But tonight, a single shake of that seasoning.

At the fragrance rising from the pan, I couldn't help but say it out loud.

"...It's Persia."

The sweet scent of rose layered itself over the smell of the searing fish,
and for a moment, my kitchen turned into that market.

I took a bite.

The tender flesh of the fish, and the brightness of the rose.
A gentle sweetness, hiding beneath the saltiness of the Guérande salt.

It wasn't a copy of the Persian flavor.
It was a new taste — one only Japanese fish could give.

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

"Delicious. This is a brand-new kind of delicious."

By the window, there was Leila.

She had come back, without my noticing.
Her cream-colored fur, lit by the setting sun, glowed the color of roses.

"Will you take me away again?"

Leila blinked, slowly.

Beyond the window, I could feel the presence of an unknown city.
I wonder what taste we'll meet next.