William Kitchiner

William Kitchiner

Portrait of Kitchiner
Born 1775
England
Died 1827 (aged 51–52)
London, England
Resting place St Clement Danes, City of Westminster, London
Nationality British
Known for Cook's Oracle, potato chip, creator of Wow-Wow sauce

William Kitchiner M.D. (1775–1827) was an English optician, inventor of telescopes, amateur musician and exceptional cook. His name was a household word during the 19th century, and his 1822 cookbook, The Cook's Oracle, was a bestseller in England and the United States. In the United Kingdom, the origin of the potato chip is attributed to Kitchiner, with The Cook's Oracle including the earliest known recipe.[1][2]

Unlike most food writers of the time he cooked the food himself, washed up afterwards, and performed all the household tasks he wrote about. He travelled around with his portable cabinet of taste, a folding cabinet containing his mustards and sauces. He was also the creator of Wow-Wow sauce.

The Cook's Oracle

Caricature of Richard Martin, William Kitchiner, Samuel Phillips Eady: Martin's Bill in Operation (published 1924).

The Cook's Oracle, whose full title Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook's Oracle. was first published in 1817.[3] It is also listed as The Cook's Oracle: Containing receipts for plain cookery on the most economical plan for private families, etc. It includes eleven ketchup recipes, including two each for mushroom, walnut and tomato ketchups, and one each for cucumber, oyster, cockle and mussel ketchups.

The book contains what may be one of the earliest references to potato chips, 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".[1][2]

Other books

Books about Kitchiner

References

  1. 1 2 Food and Drink. "'Crisps buoyed Britain in its darkest hour'". Telegraph. Retrieved 2014-08-26.
  2. 1 2 William Kitchiner (1822). The Cook's Oracle: Containing Receipts for Plain Cookery on the Most ... A. Constable & Company, Edinburgh, and Hurst, Robinson & Company, Cheapside. p. 208.
  3. ↑ "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 ...". S. Bagster. 1 January 1817 – via Google Books.
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