This family picture captures some of the complexities, secrets, and humor of embodied knowledge. It shows Rosaria DiBiasio, my great-grandmother, teaching my Aunt Carol how to make the dough for her famous thick-crust pizza. It was the early 1970s in Carol’s home in Euclid, Ohio. Rosaria had been living with the family since her husband Antonio passed. She was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, one of six in our family who have had it or have it now. At the time Carol took this picture, Rosaria’s Parkinson’s had progressed to the point that she was losing dexterity; the family knew it was only a matter of time before she would have to move to a nursing home.
Rosaria was the family matriarch, and friends and neighbors far and wide adored her Italian-American cooking. It was vital to my aunt, in high school at the time, that she learn how to make...
University of California Press