By Taylor Luck

AMMAN - For half a century, Amman residents have largely turned to one man to cure their Ramadan sweet tooth.

Abu Ali, born Ahmad Attalla, said he has become a fixture of Amman culture by sticking to his beliefs.

“To become the best, one must focus on one thing in life. I focused on qatayef,” he said.

His life’s work has been qatayef, a seasonal dish of pancake-like pastry which is filled with cheese, nuts, or other fillings, then baked or fried and dipped in sugar syrup.

While dozens of qatayef stands pop up across the Kingdom and bakeries begin carting out the sweets during the holy month, the 77-year-old is distinctive as the only qatayef purveyor to keep his stand open year-round.

“Ramadan or no Ramadan, I have qatayef. This is my work and my life, plain and simple,” he said, noting that business tends to be much lower in the off-season, making it difficult for him to meet his monthly rent.

Born and raised in Deir Yassin, near Jerusalem, Abu Ali said he had a happy childhood in his native Palestine.

When the village was razed by Jewish militias in 1948 in what would come to be known as the Deir Yassin massacre, Attalla went to Beirut to work for a bakery and catering service on Hamra Street, a change of scenery that he called rejuvenating, particularly after losing his home and many of his friends.

“Beirut was so beautiful back then. There was no war, no problems. It was like a paradise,” he said, reminiscing of the land where he honed his craft.

A holdover from his days in Lebanon, Abu Ali still offers “Lubnani qatayef”, smaller pancakes with a slightly sweeter taste.

After over a decade in Beirut, economic considerations brought Abu Ali to Amman, where he opened up his now famous shop in 1959 in downtown Amman.

Consistency brought his shop to prominence, Attalla said, noting that he has witnessed many changes between his early days in the Kingdom and the present.

When he first opened his bakery, up the winding staircase off King Hussein Street, Abu Ali offered his qatayef for 10 fils a kilo.

He now sells his renowned delicacies for JD0.90 a kilo.

A cinema used to be in the neighbourhood, and the bustling downtown was cleaner and less crowded, he said.

“Back then there was no Sweifieh, no Sweileh, there was barely even Jabal Hussein. Deir Ghbar was just that, wilderness,” he stressed, pining for a time when Jordan was a “less complicated” place.

“Life was so much simpler, more beautiful back then. There was no television, no mobile phones and no air conditioners. Five dinars was enough to live off of for a month, and you were happy with that,” he said.

Abu Ali said that despite being offered other opportunities over the past five decades, he has never strayed from making the seasonal treat.

Never franchising, or “selling out”, he has remained in the same humble shop, offering plain qatayef along with sweet cheese and raw walnuts, the staple fillings of the Ramadan pastry.

“I hate baking bread. I could never make it as a regular baker,” he noted.

He said he loses track of the number of pastries he rolls out in a day, explaining that he measures his work only by the satisfaction of the customers.

“As long as there is a line of people waiting for my qatayef, I know that I’m doing a good job,” he said.

And wait they do.

Customers from all walks of life - engineers, sanitation workers, government employees, college students, old men and housewives alike - line up in front of his shop each day during the holy month.

Five decades have brought some changes for Abu Ali as well.

In the heyday of his hilltop business, Attalla worked 16 hours a day, even more during Ramadan.

Now, he is assisted by employees and relatives during the holy month, and admitted he has had to stick to shorter hours.

Abu Ali still makes his way up the flight of stairs, each step more familiar to him than his own reflection, and personally kneads the dough to churn out a batch for his noon customers.

Pointing out that none of his eight children or over two-dozen grandchildren have embraced the business, he said he does not know the fate of his shop after he is gone.

But Abu Ali said his philosophy is to “just enjoy things while they are still good”.

Until then, Amman residents may savour that familiar smell as it sweeps its way down King Hussein Street over to Al Husseini Mosque and Raghdan, blanketing downtown Amman, as distinctive and as iconic as the capital itself - Abu Ali qatayef.