Folded by hand in Abbasiya

Much of what we eat on the go is getting smoother. The same dough, frozen somewhere far away, warmed in the same kind of oven, tasting identical wherever you buy it. It is cheaper, it is consistent, and a great many customers have come to prefer it.

There are still bakers, in side streets in places like Abbasiya, who make feteer the long way. The dough is stretched thin over the head, folded in buttered layers, and baked while you wait. It takes far longer than the shop on the main road that pulls its pastry from a freezer. Some days the layers come out better than others. Nothing in a supermarket cabinet comes close.

The pull in nearly every kind of work runs the other way. Remove whatever varies. Trim the cost. Make it match what most people already expect. That is hard to argue with, especially if the aim is to grow large and stay comfortably profitable.

A baker like that will not grow large. He will not be on every corner, and he does not seem to mind. What he has instead is a line of people who came for him in particular, and something he is plainly proud of each time he slides it onto the plate.

That choice is open to more of us than we tend to admit. Not the cheapest version and not the version built for everybody, but the one that takes more care than it strictly needs. It costs more to make. It is also the only kind anyone crosses the city for.