The Cook's Oracle: Containing Receipts for Plain Cookery on the Most Economical Plan for Private Families: Also, the Art of Composing the Most Simple and Most Highly Flavored Broths, Gravies, Soups, Sauces, Store Sauces, and Flavouring Essences...
Boston: Munroe and Frances, no. 4 Cornhill, 1822.
Sextodecimo (18 x 11.5 cm.), viii, 380 pages. Illustrated with one engraved plate. Appendix (of marketing tables); index. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, stated "From the last London edition, which is almost entirely rewritten. With an appendix by the American publishers." Originally titled Apicius Redivivus and published in London (1817), Kitchiner's work was one of the most popular of early 19th century cookbooks, both in England and America. He was known to travel with his Portable Cabinet of Taste, containing mustard and sauces. Therefore it is not surprising that the book contains eleven ketchup recipes, and the recipe for Wow-Wow Sauce, for which Kitchiner is credited as the inventor. This book also contains what is considered to be the first crisp, or potato chip recipe, titled Potatoes, Fried in Slices or Shavings; "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" (page 168, recipe no. 104). In full tree-calf with gilt-titled red morocco spine label; worn at extremities and hinges professionally repaired. Near very good. The front paste-down sports the bookseller ticket of "Lockerman & Scott, Booksellers & Stationers, Main Street Carlisle, west of the court house...". [OCLC locates twenty-four copies of this first; Bitting, page 262 ff. (citing the New York, 1830 edition); Cagle 416; Longone, page 23; Lowenstein 92].
Price: $800.00