William Kitchiner#The Cook's Oracle

File: Caricature of R. Martin, W. Kitchiner, S. Phillips Eady Wellcome L0015782.jpg, William Kitchiner, Samuel Phillips Eady: Martin's Bill in Operation (published 1824).]]

Kitchiner's most well-known book The Cook's Oracle, full title Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook's Oracle, was first published in 1817.{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X4gEAAAAYAAJ|title=Apicius Redivivus: Or, The Cook's Oracle: Wherein Especially the Art of Composing Soups, Sauces, and Flavouring Essences is Made So Clear and Easy ... Being Six Hundred Receipts, the Result of Actual Experiments Instituted in the Kitchen of a Physician, for the Purpose of Composing a Culinary Code for the Rational Epicure ...|date=1 January 1817|publisher=S. Bagster|via=Google Books}} It is also known as The Cook's Oracle: Containing receipts for plain cookery on the most economical plan for private families, etc.

The Cook's Oracle includes eleven ketchup recipes, including two each for mushroom, walnut and tomato ketchups, one each for cucumber, oyster, cockle and mussel ketchups, and also a recipe for Wow-Wow sauce.

The book contains what may be one of the earliest references to crisps, in a recipe for "Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings", which instructs the reader to "peel large potatoes, slice them about a quarter of an inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping".{{cite web|author=Food and Drink |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/10965628/Crisps-buoyed-Britain-in-its-darkest-hour.html |title=Crisps buoyed Britain in its darkest hour |work=The Telegraph |access-date=2014-08-26}}{{cite book|author=William Kitchiner|title=The Cook's Oracle: Containing Receipts for Plain Cookery on the Most ...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gvcpAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA208|year=1822|publisher=A. Constable & Company, Edinburgh, and Hurst, Robinson & Company, Cheapside |page=208}}

Kitchiner was born in 1778, the son of a prosperous merchant. His father's legacy meant he did not have to work, but instead was able to live on his own means.{{Cite web|url=https://lostcookbook.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/eccentric-epicurean/|title=An eccentric epicurean: the life of William Kitchiner (c1777-1827)|last=Archives|first=Westminster City|date=2013-06-11|website=The Cookbook of Unknown Ladies|language=en|access-date=2020-02-17}} Although claiming to have been educated at Eton and Glasgow, he attended neither institution, but the link to Glasgow enabled him to claim to be a medical doctor (M.D.), a claim no-one checked.

His love life was chequered: he married, separated, and had an illegitimate son, whom he acknowledged and funded. He surrounded himself with like-minded individuals, setting up a "committee of taste" which revolved around dinners, hosted by himself or held elsewhere.{{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-15690|title=Kitchiner, William (1778–1827), epicure and writer |year=2004 |language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/15690|access-date=2020-02-17|last1=McConnell |first1=Anita }}

His dinners were renowned and made him something of a celebrity within a certain circle. He was very important for that reason. Unlike most food writers of the time he cooked the food himself (though not alone), washed up afterward, and performed all the household tasks he wrote about. In his writings he extolled the virtues of a magazine of taste, a "pyramidical epergne" which could also be made into a portable traveling case, and which contained 28 different ingredients including liqueurs, spice blends, and proprietary sauces.{{Cite web|url=http://www.theoldfoodie.com/2008/05/magazine-of-taste.html|title=The Magazine of Taste.|last=Foodie|first=The Old|language=en|access-date=2020-02-17}}

He died in 1827 of an apparent heart attack, the day before he was due to change his will to remove his son, whom he had decided no longer merited the legacy.

• The Invalid’s Oracle
• The Housekeeper's Ledger
• The Traveller's Oracle
• The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life
• Horse and Carriage Keeper's Guide
• The Pleasures of Making a Will
• [https://wellcomecollection.org/works/k7qk3zwf The Economy of The Eyes:] For the improvement of the sight (also covers Opera Glasses, Pancratic Magnifier for double stars and day telescopes)
• The Economy of The Eyes Part 2: Telescopes
• The Sea Songs of Charles Dibdin, ed.

{{Reflist}}

• Dr. Kitchiner and the Cook's Oracle - Elspeth Davies {{ISBN|1-872795-83-8}}
• Dr William Kitchiner: the Cook's Oracle: Regency Eccentric - Tom Bridge, Colin Cooper English {{ISBN|1-870962-07-9}}

{{commonscat}}

• {{Gutenberg author | id=33482}}
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Kitchiner}}
• {{Librivox author |id=14339}}
• [https://www.foodsofengland.info/book1830kitchiner.html The 'Cook's Oracle' at Foods of England]
• [http://www.thebookofdays.com/months/feb/26.htm ECCENTRICITIES OF DR. WILLIAM KITCHINER]
• [https://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/hst/scientific-identity/fullsize/SIL14-K002-04a.jpg A large portrait from the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology]
• [https://archive.org/details/cooksoraclecont00kitcgoog Internet Archive info on The Cook's Oracle]
• [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/Bitting.52121.1 Apicius Redivivus. The Cook's Oracle] From the [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/028.html Katherine Golden Bitting Collection] at the Library of Congress

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kitchiner, William}}

Category:1775 births

Category:1827 deaths

Category:British inventors

Category:English food writers