An Iranian grocery in Lake Balboa functions as a sensory anchor and cultural hub for San Fernando Valley Iranians. Distinctive smells from imported laundry detergent, spices, incense and loose teas evoke memories and emotional connections to homeland. Family ownership began after a 1991 move from Tehran; the founder shifted from farm labor to retail and opened Q Market & Produce in 1993 at its original Vanowen Street location. The store retains traditional products such as dates, lavashak and feta while making selective adjustments to meet customers' tastes. The manager expresses a longing to return to Iran and to show his children their birthplace.
It hits me like a wall as the glass doors slide open: an unidentifiable scent - toasted, warm and slightly sweet. At international markets, smell, inextricably linked to our memories and emotions, is often a one-way plane ticket home. Imported laundry detergent, tightly sealed jars of hard-to-find spices, fragrant incense and loose teas are all olfactory postcards. At Q Market & Produce in Lake Balboa, this is no different. Its scent, while unrecognizable to me, is a reminder to others of life in Iran.
"I would love to go to Iran," manager Bobby Nosrati tells me. "I want to go get that feeling of home. Obviously it feels like home here, but I want to go feel it. I want to smell it. I want to show my kids where I was born." Nosrati's family moved from Tehran to the Valley in 1991 when he was just 5 years old. When asked what he remembers most from that time, he simply says, "I remember my parents' red couch."
Strings of plump, young dates sit tangled together near the cash register, their wrinkled elders side-eyeing them from across the aisle "back in my day"-style. Next to the dates, a library of lavashak, the puckery fruit leather, like ancient scrolls written in pomegranate and apricot, lay unfurled and stacked to the sky. At the deli, massive hunks of feta soak in tubs against a backdrop of pale pink butcher paper.
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