Series
Vanessa Anderson is the editions, on a mission to explore the neighborhood groceries throughout the southern California.
It hits me like a wall when glass doors open: an unidentifiable, roasted, warm and slightly sweet aroma. In international markets, smell, inextricably linked to our memories and emotions, is often a unidirectional plane ticket. Imported laundry detergent, well sealed bottles of difficult spices to find, fragrant incense and loose teas are olfactory postcards.
In that Market & produces in the Balboa Lake, this is no different. Its aroma, although unrecognizable to me, is a reminder for others in life in Iran. And for some, one of the only tangible links for the Iranian community in the San Fernando Valley.
Go to the spice hall in Q Market to find a 20 gallon black plastic cube full to the edge with dried files.
“I would love to go to Iran,” manager Bobby Nosrati tells me. “I want to go to have that feeling of home. Obviously he feels at home here, but I want to feel it. I want to smell it. I want to show my children where I was born.”
The Family of Nosrati moved from Tehran to the Valley in 1991 when he was only 5 years old. When asked what he remembers more than that moment, he simply says: “I remember my parents' red sofa.”
Nosrati's father, Farzin, worked long hours at a farm in Camarillo before making the decision to become a retailer; He wanted to build something for his Persian immigrants. Q Market opened in 1993 and has remained in the original location of Vanowen Street since then. While Nosrati has made adjustments here and there to keep up with customer requests (more recently appeased the multitude of Dubai teenage chocolate fans by storing the pistachio cream), the market, for the most part, has remained the same.
The strings of young dates and plots feel hurried near the cash register, their wrinkled elders the eyes of the style of the hall style “Back in My Day”. Next to the dates, a Library of Lavashak, the fruit leather of the fruit, such as the ancient scrolls written in Granada and Albaricoque, lay deployed and stacked to heaven.
Q Market's Selection of Lavashak, The Puckery Fruit Leather – Gurinas of the same “stacked as ancient scrolls written in Granada and Albaricoque”; Mortadella and other meats in a delicatessen showcase; and feta cheese blocks.
In the Delicatessen store, the massive feta cheese pieces date back to bathtubs against a pale pink butcher paper backdrop. Mortadela tubes overflow of the cold box, pressing the glass as if you want to escape.
Two butchers sit on both sides of the building, one halal, the other Kosher of Glatt. At the end of the spice hall, as a period at the end of a sentence, a 20 gallon black plastic cube was filled to the edge with dry lime.
Although Nosrati has few memories of Iran beyond the great red sofa, it recognizes the importance of importing ingredients directly from the source. It is easier to say it than to do it, given the contentious commercial relationship between the United States and Iran. But by using distributors in Canada and Türkiye, Q Market, like Persian markets throughout the country, has done.
Large catches of Iranian rice that “smell to heaven” can boast a considerable price, which has only increased due to rates.
I guide myself through the product hall from Iran, playing thin bottles of sour cherry syrup that is better enjoyed in bubbling water or ice cream, rows of Istak, a non -alcoholic malt drink and large catches of Iranian rice.
“The smell is the reason why many people end up buying it. Fill the room. You could probably smell it from here.” Nosrati says of rice. “For me, it smells like it.”
The rice has a considerable price based on its weight, quality and scarcity (a 10 -pound bag begins at $ 57.99), a price that has only increased given the recent rates, now a he Higher rates from the great depression.
“The tariffs are affecting us and we are doing our best so as not to happen to the consumer,” says Nosrati. “Obviously, I can't sell things for less than we are buying, but we no longer maintain the same margins; we will reduce the margin to half to help the consumer with that rate.”
When asked about the importance of maintaining these stored ingredients, he speaks of the severity of consistency and tradition.
“Maybe you're doing that dish once a month or once a week for your family, but if you don't have that ingredient, you can't do it … we didn't have [Iranian rice] For six months. Many containers sat there in customs for months. Some of these things are not stable and that time affects the integrity of the product; Many companies told me they had to throw their things. “
I begin to ask about the Iranian brand of Cheetos (called Chee.toz) when Nosrati calls me politely to keep that thought, and appears in the dairy hall to ask about the recent visit to a client's doctor. There are many moments like this during our chat, moments when Nosrati reminds me of the role of an edible as a community center.
Reflassing fresh vegetables in the product section; necklaces sold inside a small store on the back of the market; And a sign at the end of the oil and vinegar hall shows which distilled water is better for what ailment.
You can see in the hall with crystalline water bottles of each flavor and function: pink, orange flower, phenogreco, cinnamon, mint, anise. A sign hanging on the final cover in English and Farsi explains what flavor you should drink for stomach pain, joint pain or renal health. Near the main entrance, a CD store sells albums with women in blue Eyeshadow covers next to a curtain of accounts and concert tickets for Iranian artists of the old school.
“When I started working here about 12 years, people called and said: 'Hey, what will the weather be like?' or 'When is summer schedule?' I went to my dad and said: “People are crazy! He told me: “You need to understand, we are your pillar for many things.
An Iranian flag is shown inside a small store located inside the market. Fresh tomatoes and other products reach market Q.
Perhaps that it is more than a community center; Maybe it's an embassy. And for the second and third generation, an embassy of a place they have never visited, or they barely remember or expect to see soon, but I cannot imagine when.
Earlier this summer, The United States reached three Iranian nuclear facilitiesAn orderly attack without approval of the Congress and against the recommendation of the Intelligence of the Administration. Shortly before, Israel, with the financial support of the United States, bombarded six Iranian airports, along with several residential and military areas of the city, causing a 12 -day conflict that displaced almost 9 million from the country's capitaland climbing a tension story in the area. According to this, one would mean, if one were Iranian, that the United States has no personal interest in the commemoration or understanding of Persian culture. One would assume that the fragrant smell of Persian rice, or the great red sofa, relics of immense personal importance, are as expendable as a military dollar. Q Market, through existence, challenges this assumption, and Angelenos, by way of visiting it, echoes aloud.
In the administrative office next to a large wooden abacus, a photo framed by Mount Lady, a volcanic mountain in the northern part of Iran, observes the operation of the Nosratis. We never discuss Iranian cheetos; It feels something trivial now. Instead, I ask Bobby about the extended family in Iran, most of whom have moved abroad. His cousin, an actor, still lives in Tehran, and the two remain up to date on Instagram and WhatsApp. I ask him if he would ever want to leave and act in Los Angeles
“Oh, he would love to do it!
A photograph of Mount Lady of the market owner, Farzin Nosrati, the hometown of which he hangs in his office.
