This is the first biography of the celebrated Dr William Kitchiner MD, optician, inventor of telescopes, amateur musician and exceptional cook. Kitchiner's boisterous eccentricity stood out even in an age of eccentrics, and his name was a household word throughout the 19th century. His songs were printed and perfromed; his book 'The Cook's Oracle' was a bestseller. Though his origins were humble, he acquired a circle of friends which placed him among the influential minds of his time, including Charles Kemble, Sir John Soane, Samuel Rogers, Theodore Hook and Sir Joseph Banks, to name only a few. The Prince Regent was a frequent guest at his dinner table, which earned him the nickname "Royal Cook".

All the recipes for 'The Cook's Oracle' were tried out by his 'Committee of Taste' which was composed of his distinguished friends. Kitchiner was convinced that good health depends very largely on the proper preparation of food. He was one of the first writers to consider the chemistry of food seriously. His book makes the reader feel he or she is really in the kitchen with the 'Doctor'.

Unlike many writers on food before him he actually cooked his dishes himself, washed up afterwards, cleaned and performed all the household tasks he wrote about. His 'Cook's Oracle' has long been out of print, but it is extensively quoted from by his biographers, and carries valuable information about trading relations of the time, such as "loss leading", the adulteration of food by unscrupulous retailers, the management of perishable food before the days of refrigerators, and the surprising variety of goods which came into London (including 77 different kinds of coal).

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