Sandra Peso
Olor de Amber
Stories of the Jewish Women of Turkey
Melanie Crean
Christopher Romero
Writing and ResearchEthan D Silverman
With current methods of documentation and sharing, can an experience that speaks to all five senses be truthfully represented when it’s flattened into one? Even more importantly, how can one claim to truly represent an experience when they are not present enough in the moment to actually live through it? Olor de Amber is a reaction to the current inadequate instruments of documentation. It is an installation that is meant to portray the dying Turkish Sephardic culture in its true intensity, focusing on its cuisine. Food by its nature is experienced with multiple senses. The audience gets to experience Sephardic culture through eating, smelling, touching, as well as learning about the history and rituals that go into the preparation of the food from a short documentary about Turkish Sephardic women. Olor de Amber is a celebration of a rich culture. It is meant to overwhelm the senses, because that is precisely what the authentic experience of this culture does.
“Sanoz i rezyos, haberes buenos” my grandmother says after my uncle rushes through the Kiddush prayer at the Shabbat table. Her personal prayer dissolves into the air; as the language and the words she utters slowly fade into history. I imitated her without knowing what the words meant when I was a child. Frankly, that still hasn’t changed much today. My uncle passes the glass of wine after taking a sip, and we continue passing it along from the eldest to the youngest; however we are never patient enough to finish the tour in the right order. The bread plate is also passed from hand to hand, with tiny salted pieces ready for us to swallow. My uncle rushes through the bread prayer as well.
He simply can’t wait to eat. We don’t blame him considering the intense smell of food that’s ravishing each one of us. Our appetites reach their peak when the last dishes arrive at the table. These are the hot ones; ones that give out the most intense fragrance in their steaming clouds. Their intensity thickens the air we breathe, and we can almost taste the aroma in our mouths. Our stomachs are past the point of growling, they are screaming with famishment now. We finally sit down. We kindly appreciate the ones who prepared this meal for us… and then the race begins. The plates, the glasses, the food, the words all fly in the air, hand to hand, mouth to mouth.
The traffic feels busier than the subway at peak hour. Everyone fills their plates with some peskado, a few rulikos, avikas kon espinaka, a small piece of kalavasuco, and tapada – because you can never choose one or the other, and some arroz – usually more than we need. Everyone has their plates full – double full – filled with delicious Sephardic food that my grandmother slaved for, just for this moment of pure joy of having her family together. And at last, we are ready to dive into our personal feasts… stomachs growling… mouths watering… forks in hand, ready to attack… this is the moment – when my young cousin takes out her most up-to-date smart phone, holds it over her plate and goes…click.
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Sandra Peso
Sandra Peso was born in Istanbul, Turkey. Having performed on stage until college, she moved to the US and studied Drama at University of Virginia. She developed her skills backstage in stage-managing, directing, costume and lighting design and took a number of film-oriented classes. After completing her Bachelors degree, she moved to New York and attended New York Film Academy’s One-Year Filmmaking program. She focused her studies on directing, cinematography and editing. She shot and edited a short film called Jerry, which was selected for Berlin Film Festival’s Talent Campus. She worked as a freelance DP/Editor while working as an assistant director in the creative collective, GoGo Project. She is currently completing her MFA in Design and Technology in Parsons The School for Design as she continues her freelance work in motion graphics and videography.