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Revision as of 17:40, 6 April 2005 by 71.36.84.186 (talk) (→External Links)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Ruth Graves Wakefield was the inventor of the chocolate chip, or Toll House Cookie.
The Toll House
Having graduated from Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924, she worked as a dietitian and lectured about food until 1930, when she and her husband Kenneth bought a tourist lodge near Whitman, Massachusetts. It had been built in 1709 and had a rich history of providing a night's solace to weary travelers. The two named the establishment the Toll House Inn and took it upon themselves to uphold the lodge's tradition. Ruth cooked all the food served and soon gained local fame for her desserts.
Chocolate Chips
One day while cooking a dessert that had been a favorite, the Butter Drop Do Cookie, she realized she was out of baking chocolate, and instead substituted a bar of semi-sweet chocolate that had been a present from Andrew Nestle. The broken bits did not melt as expected, however, and merely softened. The cookie was a hit right away, and Ruth soon contacted Nestle and the two struck a deal: He would print her recipe on the cover of all his chocolate bars, and she would get a lifetime supply of chocolate. Nestle sold so many candy bars he soon began marketing chocolate chips especially used for cookies. Ruth wrote a cookbook, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, in 1940.
Ruth died in 1977, and the Toll House Inn burned down New Year's Eve of 1984, but her cookie lives on.