On Dokki neighborhood streets, Amm Gaber, 45, roams among cars and traffic lights, holding a box, and shouts, "Freska! Freska! Oh, sweeter than biscuits!"
Most are used to hearing freska peddlers shout on beaches, but not in the streets of Dokki.
“Freska” is what Egyptians call the round, sweet, paper-thin wafers often sold on the beach as peddlers carry them inside large glass cases over their shoulders.
“Italians invented freska and used to call it ‘fresh’. We took it from them at the time of war and dubbed it freska,” Amm Gaber explains.
Amm Gaber perhaps reminds passers-by in the dead winter of the beautiful moments of summer, as despite the freska he sells, he insists to wear the formal clothes of his profession called “bamboteya.”
Like other freska sellers, Amm Gaber used to wait for the summer season in Alexandria each year to sell the sweet wafers, until the month of Ramadan started to coincide with the summer season, culminating in steep losses to his business.
He then thought of heading to Cairo to make up for his losses over the months of Ramadan during the past five years.
Amm Gaber said he discovered that the people of Cairo who visit the beaches from year to year are the ones to long for the freska wafers the most.
