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Ruth Finnegan was born on the last day of 1933 in Derry, Northern Ireland, the eldest child of Dr Thomas Finnegan, Professor of Classics and President of Magee College (later, under his leadership Magee University College) and Agnes Finnegan née Campbell, teacher and writer. Largely brought up in Derry, she spent most of the war years in Donegal, 13 months of it in a small cottage in a 'gentle' (faerie) wood, an experience vividly described in her mother's entrancing 'Reaching for the Fruit' and her own semi-autobiographical novel, 'Black Inked Pearl'. This had a lasting influence on her life.In order to avoid an upbringing tainted by Ulster religious divisions, on their return to Derry in 1945 her parents sent her to a Quaker school in York (the Mount) where the experience of memorising and repeating daily 'texts' from the Bible and other literature, shaped much of her future writing, most directly in her monograph Why do we quote? and her novel Black Inked Pearl.This was followed by four joyous years (1952-56) at Somerville College Oxford, again reflected in the novel, in the delightful study of classics (a degree that then combined literature, history and philosophy), ending, to her amazement, with one of the best classics firsts of her year. After two years teaching (and repaying her student debt) at the leading public school Malvern Girls College (now Malvern St James) she decided to return to the intellectual life but this time, much though she would always love the Greek and Roman cultures, to follow her instinct, honed partly by her anti-colonialist and broadly left-wing stance, to widen her study to include learning about other cultures .She chose to focus on Africa, and completed first the postgraduate Oxford Diploma and B.Litt in Anthropology, then fieldwork (1960-61, 1963-4) on story telling among the Limba speakers of Northern Sierra Leone (her manuscript field notes are deposited in the archives of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London); digitised versions of audio taped Limba story-telling and (minimally) music are available on. She completed her D.Phil in 1963, supported by Nuffield College, under the celebrated anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard.Immediately after her marriage in 1963 to David John Murray, grandson of Sir James Murray, the first editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, she accompanied her husband to the University College of the Rhodesias and Nyasaland in the then Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and from there to the more democratic if conflict-ridden setting of the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1965-69) where their three daughters were born. From there she and her husband were recruited as founding members of the academic staff of the Open University where, apart from three years at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji and Ruthm 1989, and in the wonderful setting of the University of Texas at Austin, they very productively spent the rest of their careers. See: www.ruthhfinnegan.com
Maria Paula Castellanos Monroy 401 reviews10 followers June 7, 2024 An extraordinary book to learn and have fun! I have never felt so much peace in accepting that I have been a bad cook all my life and I must admit that nothing motivated me more than finding a book for those who are clumsy in the kitchen. Taking the weight off my shoulders of being obligated to be a good cook is one of the best things that ever happened to me and then finding a book that doesn't promise that you will be the best chef in the world was the first step to motivate me for the first time in my life to learn about cooking, without any high expectations but just for fun and to reconnect with the art of cooking anything! Although this book is an extensive introduction to cooking, it is an introduction to understanding that food is an experience that should connect with our senses, even connect with our memories and recollections. Food and dishes are not born just for the sake of it, but have a story behind them that brings discoveries, traditions, culture, effort and above all love, no matter what you cook and regardless of the result you get, it is an experience that must connect with our senses. If you are looking for a text that goes beyond the traditional recipes, this is for you, if you are willing to find that recipes need an extra pinch of love over those of salt then you have found the right book. This text is fun, exciting, informative and above all didactic, don't expect to find a traditional book. I could not be more grateful to have found this treasure that allowed me to go through many emotions through the palate, a text that allowed me to remember the most delicious dishes that my grandmother used to make me and replicate them with the heart and not with the desire to obtain a perfect result. This book should be the methodology used to teach cooking!
