06/18/2015
Thank you Ruth Wakefield!
If you like to sit down with a good book and a chocolate chip cookie, you can thank Ruth Graves Wakefield! Wakefield, who was born on this day in 1903, was a business owner, author, and chef -- and the inventor of the chocolate chip cookie. Today, versions of the cookie she invented are available nearly everywhere... and it all started with a bit of ingenuity and a desire to add a new treat to her restaurant's menu.
Unusually for a woman of her day, Wakefield was a university graduate: she was educated in household arts at the Framingham State Normal School and toured as a dietitian, teaching people about food and nutrition. In 1930, she and her husband bought the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. Wakefield cooked and served all the meals, and quickly became famous for her food, particularly her desserts. Popular legend says her cookie invention was the result of a happy accident, but Wakefield maintained that she was actively working on creating a new treat. âWe had been serving a thin butterscotch nut cookie with ice cream,â she said. âEverybody seemed to love it, but I was trying to give them something different." So Wakefield took an ice pick to a block of chocolate, added it to her cookie dough, and the chocolate chip cookie was born.
The cookie rapidly became a hit with her guests and when Wakefield reissued her best-selling cookbook, âToll House Tried and True Recipes,â in 1938, she included âThe Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie.â The recipe made the book even more popular, and soon the NestlĂ© chocolate company found demand for its semi-sweet bars of chocolate spiking. Andrew NestlĂ© approached Wakefield about the rights for the recipe, and soon NestlĂ© was making semi-sweet chips specifically for cookies -- and printing the Toll House cookie recipe on every package. What did Wakefield ask for the rights to the recipe and the Toll House name? One dollar... plus a lifetime supply of NestlĂ© chocolate!
Wakefield died in 1977, but her legacy lives on: her cookbook is still in print today and her recipe is still printed on each package of NestlĂ© Toll House Morsels. And, of course, itâs a rare person who hasnât sampled some variation of her chocolate crunch cookie. After all, as the vintage ads said, âThey never get enough of my Toll House cookies!â
Ruth Graves Wakefield is one of many female inventors featured in the excellent book, âGirls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions By Womenâ for age 8 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/girls-think-of-everything
For a recent book about the history of the chocolate chip cookie, including Wakefield's story, check out "The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book" at http://amzn.to/1IlHvJv
To introduce your kids to another culinary pioneer, Julia Child, we highly recommend "Minette's Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat" for ages 3 to 8 at (http://www.amightygirl.com/minette-s-feast) and "Bon Appétit! The Delicious Life of Julia Child" for ages 7 to 12 (http://www.amightygirl.com/bon-appetit).
For more Mighty Girl stories celebrating cooking and Mighty Girls who love to cook, visit our "Food & Cooking" section at http://www.amightygirl.com/books/general-interest/food-gardening?cat=89
And, for a variety of culinary toys to engage your young baker or chef-in-training, check out our âPretend Play Cookingâ section at http://www.amightygirl.com/toys/imaginative-play/pretend-play?cat=506
Thanks to the The Scientista Foundation for this image!
