Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate
Chip
Cookies
Have you ever eaten
some Chocolate Chip
cookies?
Did you know that this
is one of the most
traditional American
confections ever?
Ruth Graves Wakefield
is who invented
chocolate chip cookies.
You may have never
heard of the name
before today, but
now you can sing
her praises every
time you bite into
one of these pieces
of confectionary
genius.
In 1993, Ruth and her
husband Kenneth were
running the Toll House
Inn, a tourist lodge, in
Whitman,
Massachusetts.
Ruth cooked for all of
their roadside guests.
She prepared the
recipes for the meals
herself, and started
gaining local notoriety
because of her
desserts.
One of her favorite
recipes was for Butter
Drop Do Cookies. The
recipe called for
Baker’s chocolate.
One day she had
begun making some
cookies for her
guests when she
realized that she
was out of Baker’s
chocolate.
She had on hand some
Nestlé’s Semi-Sweet
Chocolate bars, which
she cut into bits and
used as a substitute in
her recipe.
However, unlike the
Baker’s chocolate, the
chocolate bits did not
melt completely, the
small pieces only
softened.
Thank heavens
Ruth decided to
serve the cookies
anyway, and history
was made!
The cookies were an
instant hit, and gained
notoriety after the
recipe was published
in a Boston newspaper
At the time, they
were called Toll
House Chocolate
Crunch Cookies.
As the cookies became
popular, sales of
Nestlé’s Semi-Sweet
Chocolate bars
increased.
So Andrew Nestlé
and Ruth Wakefield
struck a deal.
Nestlé would have the
right to publish Ruth’s
recipe, and Ruth would
have a lifetime supply
of chocolate.
So, another piece of
American Food History
was made.
Nestlé put in the
market the Toll House
Chocolate Chips, which
is, to this day,
synonymous with
chocolate chip cookies.
There’s nothing better
than warm chocolate
chip cookies with a
glass of cold milk!
There are now many
different recipes for
chocolate chip cookies,
but the feelings this
tasty little confection
evokes in all
Americans, children
and adults alike, is
always the same.
It tastes of home and
loving memories.
You can’t possibly think
of America and not
think of Chocolate Chip
cookies. So it is that
some seven billion
chocolate chip cookies
are consumed in the
US every year!
Now let’s say “Thank
you, thank you, Ruth
Wakefield, for not
dumping those
messed up cookies in
the trash that day!!”
Now, if you want the
recipe for the Original
Toll House Chocolate
Chip Cookies, you, or
your parent, can come
to our first Cooking
Class and we will
make some!
(produced by Monica Cardoso and Alice Bello)