Today is the birthday of the woman who invented the most-loved cookie in America: the chocolate chip cookie. Where did she invent it?
The date is June 17th, Monday, and today I’m coming to you from La Serena, Chile.
Today is the birthday of Ruth Graves Wakefield, American chef and inventor of the most popular cookie in America: the chocolate chip cookie. After graduating in 1924 from what is now known as Framingham State University, with a degree from the Department of Household Arts, Ruth lectured and worked as a dietician in the Massachusetts town.
In 1930, Ruth and her husband bought a small inn in Whitman, MA a popular stop-over town for travelers on their way to the southern Massachusetts coast. They named it the Toll House Inn and had a small restaurant where Ruth cooked homemade meals. It became known for its lobster dinners and delicious desserts, from Boston cream pie to sticky pecan rolls, and of course various cookies.
The Toll House was very well frequented. It is rumored that Joseph Kennedy, Sr., would visit for dessert and that his daughter Rosemary sent her brother John F. Kennedy Toll House cookies in a care package during his time in the service.
Around 1937, Ruth Wakefield was making a lot of butterscotch-nut cookies at the Toll House Inn and she wanted to mix things up for her guests. She took a bar of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate, chopped it up, and threw it into a batch of Butter Drop Do cookies. Some sources say Ruth’s cookies were a happy accident, claiming that Ruth put chocolate chunks into cookies thinking the cookie itself would become chocolate. However, Ruth, being an expert baker, would have known how to make dough chocolate if she wanted.
The new “Toll House” cookie became a favorite of visitors and Ruth published a version of the recipe in the 1938 edition of her cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes as well as in a Boston newspaper and a few local newspapers. With Massachusettsans baking their own Toll House cookie like crazy, sales of semi-sweet Nestle bars shot through the roof. Ruth approached Nestle and struck a deal: they would print her Toll House Cookie recipe on the back of their chocolate bars, and Ruth would receive as much Nestle chocolate as she could use. Soon, Nestle was making chocolate bars that were segmented into smaller pieces, eventually selling perfectly proportioned chocolate chips. To this day bags of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips have a recipe for chocolate chip cookies on the back of the bag.
The Toll House brand remains today as a maker of all kinds of cookies, though the most famous is certainly their chocolate chip. They have tubs of ready-made dough and partner with ice cream brands as the dough in the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream flavor.
Hundreds of variations exist on the original Toll House recipe, from walnut chocolate chip cookies to chocolate chocolate chip cookies. The chocolate chip cookie, in addition to being a true all-American cookie, has become synonymous with those warm-and-fuzzy back-home feelings, with realtors sometimes baking chocolate chip cookies in homes before open houses. And hotel chains like DoubleTree serving warm chocolate chip cookies to guests upon check in. Is it any wonder there is an annual Chocolate Chip Cookie Day on August 4th in the United States?
The Caterpillar
Robert Graves
Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A creeping, coloured caterpillar,
I gnaw the fresh green hawthorn spray,
I nibble it leaf by leaf away.
Down beneath grow dandelions,
Daisies, old-man’s-looking-glasses;
Rooks flap croaking across the lane.
I eat and swallow and eat again.
Here come raindrops helter-skelter;
I munch and nibble unregarding:
Hawthorn leaves are juicy and firm.
I’ll mind my business: I’m a good worm.
When I’m old, tired, melancholy,
I’ll build a leaf-green mausoleum
Close by, here on this lovely spray,
And die and dream the ages away.
Some say worms win resurrection,
With white wings beating flitter-flutter,
But wings or a sound sleep, why should I care?
Either way I’ll miss my share.
Under this loop of honeysuckle,
A hungry, hairy caterpillar,
I crawl on my high and swinging seat,
And eat, eat, eat—as one ought to eat.