History Of Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ah, the years before the 1930’s were to many the “good old days”, you could relax without worry, that’s right no troubles at all. All you had to do was prop up your lawn chair next to your little lemonade table, and of course remember to pilfer a few good ol’ chocolate chip cookies from the cookie jar, and your afternoon was set ! Well, that’s what you would think, except there’s one small thing I forgot to mention, there were no chocolate chip cookies back then. So go ahead and let your jaw drop because before the 30’s, well the word chocolate chip cookie was very well synonymous with the word abracadabra (which, actually means gibberish). So then how did this once undiscovered delight get to become America’s best recognized cookie? Well her name was Ruth Wakefield and her mistake is now praised upon by many.
What? Mistake? Yes, you heard me right she made a slight error in her cooking, and well the rest was history. How, you may ask did this come about? Well, let me start from the beginning. Ruth Graves Wakerfield worked as a dietitian and food lecturer until in 1930, she and her husband purchased a Cape Cod – style toll house that they soon turned into a lodge and called it, yep you guessed it: the Toll House Inn. At the Inn Ruth cooked and baked meals for the guests, but it was her desserts that attracted people from all over New England. One of her favorite recipes was for Butter Drop Do cookies, a recipe that required Baker’s chocolate. However, as she was preparing the batter, she discovered, to her dismay that there was no more Baker’s Chocolate. And so what’s a girl to do? Well, improvise that’s right! She found in her kitchen a bar of semi-sweet chocolate that had been given to her by none other than Andrew Nestle. Thus, she cut the bar into tiny pieces and added it to the dough. Hence, the dough went into the oven and much to Ruth’s flabbergasted surprise, the chocolate did not melt completely; it had kept its shape and softened up just a little. Needless to say however, the cookies were a hit with the guests of the Inn.
Her recipe to everyone’s delight began surfacing on the pages of newspapers everywhere while, at the same time, Nestlé’s Chocolate bar sales were going through the roof. So finally Nestle and Ruth decided to come to an agreement, her recipe for “Toll House Cookie” would be printed on the packaging of every bar sold. Soon however Nestle had an even better idea: he decided to package “Nestle Toll House Real Semi – sweet Chocolate Chips”, and well we all know how successful that was.
So thus, here ends our chocolaty story of how the legendary cookie came to be. So the next time you bite into that delicious chocolate chip cookie, just remember Ruth Wakerfield and her mistake that changed America.
