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, crisp, 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 crisp is attributed to Kitchiner, with The Cook's Oracle including the earliest known recipe.

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, whose full title Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook's Oracle. was first published in 1817. 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 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".