Food and drink

Rose water has a very distinctive flavour and is used heavily in Middle Eastern, Persian, and South Asian cuisine—especially in sweets such as barfi, baklava, halva, gulab jamun, gumdrops, kanafeh, nougat, and Turkish delight.

Rose petals or flower buds are sometimes used to flavour ordinary tea, or combined with other herbs to make herbal teas.

In France, there is much use of rose syrup, most commonly made from an extract of rose petals. In the Indian subcontinent,        Rooh Afza, a concentrated squash made with roses, is popular, as are rose-flavoured frozen desserts such as ice cream and kulfi.[9][10]

Rose flowers are used as food, also usually as flavouring or to add their scent to food.[11] Other minor uses include candied rose petals.[12]

Rose creams (rose-flavoured fondant covered in chocolate, often topped with a crystallised rose petal) are a traditional English confectionery widely available from numerous producers in the UK.

Under the American Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act,[13] there are only certain Rosa species, varieties, and parts are listed as generally recognized as safe (GRAS).

Rose absolute: Rosa alba L., Rosa centifolia L., Rosa damascena Mill., Rosa gallica L., and vars. of these spp.

• Rose (otto of roses, attar of roses): Ditto
• Rose buds: Ditto
• Rose flowers: Ditto
• Rose fruit (hips): Ditto
• Rose leaves: Rosa spp.[14]

Medicine
 
The rose hip, usually from R. canina, is used as a minor source of vitamin C. The fruits of many species have significant levels of vitamins and have been used as a food supplement. Many roses have been used in herbal and folk medicines. Rosa chinensis has long been used in Chinese traditional medicine. This and other species have been used for stomach problems, and are being investigated for controlling cancer growth.[15] In pre-modern medicine, diarrhodon (Gr διάρροδον, "compound of roses", from ῥόδων, "of roses"[16]) is a name given to various compounds in which red roses are an ingredient.

 Art and symbolism
Main article: Rose (symbolism)                                              

The long cultural history of the rose has led to it being used often as a symbol. In ancient Greece, the rose was closely associated with the goddess Aphrodite.[17][18] In the Iliad, Aphrodite protects the body of Hector using the "immortal oil of the rose"[19][17] and the archaic Greek lyric poet Ibycus praises a beautiful youth saying that Aphrodite nursed him "among rose blossoms".[20][17] The second-century AD Greek travel writer Pausanias associates the rose with the story of Adonis and states that the rose is red because Aphrodite wounded herself on one of its thorns and stained the flower red with her blood.[21][17] Book Eleven of the ancient Roman novel The Golden Ass by Apuleius contains a scene in which the goddess Isis, who is identified with Venus, instructs the main character, Lucius, who has been transformed into a donkey, to eat rose petals from a crown of roses worn by a priest as part of a religious procession in order to regain his humanity.[18]

Following the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the rose became identified with the Virgin Mary. The color of the rose and the number of roses received has symbolic representation.[22][23][18] The rose symbol eventually led to the creation of the rosary and other devotional prayers in Christianity.[24][18]
Framed print after 1908 painting by Henry Payne of the scene in the Temple Garden, where supporters of the rival factions in the Wars of the Roses pick either red or white roses.

Ever since the 1400s, the Franciscans have had a Crown Rosary of the Seven Joys of the Blessed Virgin Mary.[18] In the 1400s and 1500s, the Carthusians promoted the idea of sacred mysteries associated with the rose symbol and rose gardens.[18] Albrecht Dürer's painting The Feast of the Rosary (1506) depicts the Virgin Mary distributing garlands of roses to her worshippers.[18]

Roses symbolised the Houses of York and Lancaster in a conflict known as the Wars of the Roses.

Roses are a favored subject in art and appear in portraits, illustrations, on stamps, as ornaments or as architectural elements. The Luxembourg-born Belgian artist and botanist Pierre-Joseph Redouté is known for his detailed watercolours of flowers, particularly roses.

Henri Fantin-Latour was also a prolific painter of still life, particularly flowers including roses. The rose 'Fantin-Latour' was named after the artist.

Other impressionists including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir have paintings of roses among their works.