Grains of Paradise

Medieval spice traders sold a variety of peppercorn called Grains of Paradise when they couldn't get their hands on black pepper. They claimed that it was taken from the stream that flows out of the garden of Eden as a way of inflating the price.
They are still available through specialty spice traders and they have a lovely, complex, rich flavor.

"Take them," he says, with outstretched hand. His weathered fingers are clenched into a fist and blue with cold, his coat is tattered. There is a wild gleam in his eye and you can't help thinking that his is the face of someone on whom the abyss has stared long, and not kindly.
"Take them," he insists again, as you try to pass him by. "Please," his voice cracks, "you must."
You turn to face him, and realize he is old, a broken shell of a man. But he was proud once, and wears the shredded vestments of that pride like a veil between him and the grey cold. He is not begging, he is insisting.
"Eat them," he says, turning his hand over, spreading his fingers. On his palm rest three tiny beads, dried berries or peppercorns. "Grains of paradise," he says, "plucked from the Euphrates as it flows out of Eden. They grow there, in the garden where men may not go, and some of them fall..." he tries to grin at his little pun but he knows his teeth are black and rotting and he can not stand to let you see them.
You try to protest, but your words die in your throat. You take the beads.
They are warm in your hand, not with residual heat from his skin, but burning from the inside. It is a curious kind of warmth, one that carries with it a lightness, and a tingling sensation. You liken it to the feeling of a limb that has long been asleep, beginning to wake up.
"Don't think, eat them." His is a quiet voice, level, insistent. It slips beneath your conscious perceptions and filters down into some deeper part of your brain. There primal instinct lays dormant, until, woken, it acts.
You toss the grains into your mouth. You crack them between your teeth. You taste nothing.
Then the street starts to fade, the slush and the smoke and the honking of cars turns to white noise and whispering sand. The iron sky rolls back on itself, turns an angry blue, clear and desolate. The stench of the sewer rises like a living thing threatening to choke you...
And you taste it. It is heat, and sun, and the promise of grass. Symphonies of flavor play out in that single, simple crack. Notes of pepper trill across your tongue, while mint and oak play a timpani on the back of your throat.
A dragon roars from the dessert sky, you dance to keep your feet from burning. A night in green armor rides from a mirage to meet it, side by side with an angel bearing a flaming sword. They cross paths and clash and are lost behind the breeze.
Somewhere horses whiny and bay. They have small voices, and compact bodies, and beneath their noise you can hear the voices of women and men worn raw by the heat and cracked on dry air. Your own throat feels thick and scratched but you swallow and at last a word escapes.
You do not hear it. You are back on the street. The man is not in front of you. You are wearing his coat, and your hands are cold.
It comes to you suddenly, a memory of men and horses, something you saw. A smile. It was broad and the teeth it showed were square and white, the smile was set in a face lined with life and glowing with pride, and above it two eyes burned, fever bright.