Though it shared nothing in common with German or Turkish, some of the sentence was close enough to English that he could get some gist of it after contemplation. But she was already onto the next thing before he could sort it out.

She was not the first to fancy treating him stupid, and would probably not be the last... though he had noticed a decline in that sort of treatment since he had started working in higher-end cuisine. A lot of people had tried to speak to him in French, even in Manchester.

But, Ahmet decided to play along. He tilted his head like a quizzical deer – and then, still much like a quizzical deer, popped the petal in his mouth and chewed.

He scrunched his nose. More savory than the tulips back home, but still distinctly tulip.

“Ever had tulip ice cream?”