METHODOLOGY

The Workshop Art and Culture as Therapy against Alzheimers, “Tarta Murcia” focuses on multisensory stimulation.

The participants consists of 9 Alzheimers patients of both sexes who had been diagnosed with GDS 4 and are under treatment at the Dementia Unit at the University Hospital Virgen de la Arrixaca in Murcia. This activity also relies on the collaboration of the pastry chef, Paco Torreoblanca, his son David and 18 first and second year students at the Hotel Management School in Murcia.

The workshop takes place over five 90 minutes sessions, in the kitchen classroom at the school and each patient is accompanied by two students. Because of their knowledge in baking and making desserts, the students’ role is to help the patients to identify the ingredients of the desserts and their required quantities. On the other hand, the patients bring their own aprons from their homes to help them to associate the assignment at the workshop with the kitchen and its tasks.

All the sessions focus on the many sensations that pass through the brain at the moment of eating a small cake or dessert: a muffin, Rice pudding, Calatrava Bread Pudding, Meringue etc. A dessert stimulates smells, tastes and textures that together evoke memories of the place in which it was experienced and with whom it was enjoyed.

At the opening session, given by Paco Torreblanca on 16^th of February 2010, the celebrated pastry chef talks about the gastronomic tastes of the Mediterranean and, in particular, of the Murcia Region. Offering the patients desserts of different tastes and diverse textures, he encourages them to sense their fragrances (what does it smell of?), identify their colours and elaboration (is it cooked done in an oven or eaten raw?) and to savour them for a few moments in the mouth (identify the taste and the texture). They serve as an inspiration for a broad conversation about memories related to desserts – situations and tastes: What was the taste of their most favourite dessert? What situation did it recall: a celebration, a family gathering or a place? At the end of this session, they choose a dessert to elaborate in the following session.

In the second session, the patients, together with the students, make an effort to remember Paco Torreblanca’ visit and the name of the dessert already chosen. Directed by the students, the patients identify the ingredients needed for the dessert and their quantities, as well as relating it to the original situation of its elaboration: where and with whom. Subsequently, they prepare the dessert and make notes of the process. The working day finished with a happy tasting session, followed by the patients choosing their favourite dessert to elaborate the next day.

When the patients come to the third session with the students, the ingredients for the desserts are already laid out on the kitchen benches. The patients remember the dessert that they had chosen, and name the ingredients, and then prepare the recipe in collaboration with the students. When finished the work, the dessert is placed on a tray and the patients photographed, proud of their baked products in their hands. Later they enjoy tasting each others’ desserts: smelling their fragrance, identifying their colour and elaboration, as well as experiencing the taste and texture. Finally, they put aside a small piece so the Torreblanca team can taste them all.

David Torreblanca is in charge of the following session. That day the patients are asked to describe to him the recipes and give him samples to taste. Each patient has five minutes to describe his/her dessert and together they analyse the ingredients in relation to the Mediterranean flavours. The aim is to identify them and use them in the creation of Murcia Tart.

In the fifth and the last session, the patients elaborate Murcia Tart in collaboration with David and the students. This tart is meant to be a meeting point between the well-known desserts elaborated by the patients and the contribution of Torreblanca’s team. In that way, the dessert will be familiar with slightly “strange” aroma. The goal is to find a taste from the past with one foot in the future and offer this taste to the society of Murcia on the day of the presentation of the Workshop.