Chocolate Chip Cookie?

Question

Does anyone have any idea how a chocolate chip cookie is an American Icon? Thanks...

I have to explain why like other countries think American when they see a chocolate chip cookie. Like why it's so associated with America and not other countries. And not just because the cookie itself is American.

Answer 1

A chocolate chip cookie is a type of cookie originating in the United States. As its name implies, it is characterized by the inclusion of chocolate chips, but beyond that defining characteristic, there is a great deal of variation within this kind of cookie.

The chocolate chip cookie, also known as the Toll House Cookie, was accidentally developed by Ruth Graves Wakefield, owner of the Toll House Inn near Whitman, Massachusetts, in 1933. The generally accepted story goes: Wakefield was making chocolate cookies but ran out of regular Baker's chocolate and substituted pieces of semi-sweet chocolate broken apart using a knife, assuming it would melt and mix into the batter. It did not, and the cookie with chips of chocolate was born. (The restaurant, housed in a former toll house built in 1709, burned down in 1984.) Wakefield sold the recipe to Nestlé in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate chips. Every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips in North America has Wakefield's original recipe printed on the back.

But according to Carol Cavanagh, of Brockton, Massachusetts, whose father, George Boucher, now residing in S. Dennis, Massachusetts, was the head chef at the Toll House Inn, from its opening to its closing, the true story of the cookie's creation goes like this: Ruth Wakefield was known for her sugar cookies, which came free with every meal, and were for sale in the inn's lobby. One day, while mixing a batch of sugar cookie dough, the vibrations from a large Hobart mixer against the kitchen's wall, caused bars of Nestlé's baker's chocolate on the shelf above to fall into the mixer, where it was broken up and incorporated into the dough. Ruth thought that the dough was ruined and was about to discard it, when George Boucher stopped her and talked her into saving the batch. His reasoning was out of frugality rather than a prediction of the cookie's future popularity. Logically, the accepted story of the cookie's origin doesn't hold up since Ruth Wakefield was an accomplished pastry chef and author of a cookbook, so would have known enough about the properties of chocolate, and that it wouldn't melt and mix into the batter to make chocolate cookies, while baking.

During WWII, GI's from Massachusetts who were stationed overseas shared the Toll House Cookies they received in care packages from back home, with soldiers from other parts of the U.S. Soon, hundreds of GI's were writing home asking their families to send them some Toll House Cookies, and Ruth Wakefield was deluged with letters from around the country, from people looking to purchase them. Thus, began the nation-wide craze for the chocolate chip cookie. In 1936, Mrs. Wakefield's cookbook, Ruth Wakefield's Toll House Tried and True Recipes, was published by M. Barrows & Company, New York. Included, is the recipe for the Toll House Cookie, originally called the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie. The book is out of print but some booksellers still have copies for sale. Older editions have a photo of the Toll House Inn on the cover of the dust jacket.

As for the story of how Nestlé acquired the rights for the recipe, Mrs. Cavanagh claims that too, is not how things really happened. According to her, Wakefield did not sell the rights to Nestlé, she only allowed them to print her recipe on the packages of their Baker's chocolate. Later, Nestlé's lawyers found loopholes to wrangle the rights to the recipe from Mrs. Wakefield, and began mass-producing the cookies.

The Toll House Inn was a very popular restaurant in its day. Not only was it popular with the people from Massachusett's South Shore area, but the restaurant was frequented by politicians, foreign dignitaries and movie stars. Mrs. Carol Cavanagh used to waitress there as a teen, and remembers serving the actress, Loretta Young, one night, in the 1950s. The restaurant's popularity was not just due to its home-cooked style meals; Ruth Wakefield's policy was to give diners a whole extra helping of their entrees to take home with them, as well as her Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies, for dessert.


On July 9, 1997, the state of Massachusetts designated the chocolate chip cookie as the official state cookie, after it was proposed by a third grade class from Somerset, Massachusetts.

Answer 2

Chocolate Chip is Massachusetts' state cookie....betcha didn't know that one! But really, whenever people think cookies in america, they think chocolate chip. The reason for the cookie of Massachusetts being chocolate chip is because it was invented be Ruth Wakefield, in Massachusetts. It's everybody's favourite cookie.

Answer 3

Ruth Wakefield invented Chocolate Chip Cookies. Ruth Graves Wakefield graduated from the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924. She worked as a dietitian and lectured on food, until, together with her husband she bought a tourist lodge named the Toll House Inn.

Ruth Wakefield prepared the recipes for the meals served to the guests at the Inn and gained local notoriety for her deserts. One of her favorite recipes was for Butter Drop Do cookies. The recipe called for the use of baker's chocolate and one day Ruth found herself without the needed ingredient. She substituted a semi-sweet chocolate bar cut up into bits. However, unlike the baker's chocolate the chopped up chocolate bar did not melt completely, the small pieces only softened.

As it so happened the chocolate bar had been a gift from Andrew Nestle of the Nestle Chocolate Company. As the Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe became popular, sales of Nestle's semi-sweet chocolate bar increased. Andrew Nestle and Ruth Wakefield struck a deal. Nestle would print the Toll House Cookie recipe on its packaging and Ruth Wakefield would have a lifetime supply of Nestle chocolate.

"How Does Your Chocoale Chip Cookie Crumble?"

Answer 4

LOL Uhh...cause moms and grandmoms bake them? Uhh...I'm still confused