The Truth Behind the Chocolate Chip Cookie by Annie

The Truth Behind the Chocolate Chip Cookie by Annie - February 2016 Scholarship Essay

Ten years ago, if you were to ask me what the most important meal of the day is, I would have easily responded with “dessert, of course”. A decade later, and my answer has yet to change. Sure the nutritional value in this meal -or rather snack, for most would argue that dessert in no way qualifies as a well balanced meal- is lacking, but thanks to my notorious sweet tooth, I can’t refuse a good dessert. So as I child, I naturally gravitated towards baking. Whether it was watching a cake decorating competition on the Food Network Channel, or lingering in the kitchen when my mom made brownies, it fascinated me. I was eager to join my mom when she baked, and eventually she began to pass on her tricks of the trade. In full disclosure, I initially only wanted to learn so that I could eat a bunch of treats, yet the more my mom taught me, the more I enjoyed the process of baking. I developed a passion for the activity. Every weekend I would beg my mom to make more desserts with me. Soon enough, she became tired of my badgering and decided I could start cooking on my own. “I’ll give you something easy to start off with,” she told me as she handed me a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I flipped over to the back of the bag to find the familiar Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe. This was not my first time using this recipe, nor would it be my last. In fact, as of this day, I am so well acquainted with its ingredients that I can recite it from memory.

Fast forward a couple of years during my later days of elementary school. I was attending my weekly Girl Scouts meeting. We were working on our baking badge, and as you can probably imagine, I was quite excited. As we munched on theme-appropriate snacks,, our troop leader told us some baking “fun facts”. One of her stories especially interested me: the origins of the chocolate chip cookie. The phenomenon of the chocolate chip cookie was created by Ruth Graves Wakefield, a well renowned baker of the mid 20th century. Alongside her husband, she owned and ran the Toll House Inn, where she was the head chef. She was locally popular for her home cooked food, including her locally famous lobster dinners. Yet she was most popular for her baking, especially her cookies. Rumor has it that one night while she was baking chocolate cookies, she ran out of cocoa powder. Being resources full, added small chunks of chocolate to the cookie batter, hoping that it would spread out while baking. Yet when she pulled the cookies out of the oven, the chocolate pieces had remained whole. So like the discovery of penicillin, a fortunate accident lead to the creation of something amazing, and in 1938, the chocolate chip cookie was born. Over half a decade later and Mrs. Wakefield’s recipe has grown in popularity, making its way on to the back of every bag of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips.

This story fascinated me, and I was compelled to discover more about it. Upon many hours of research, I found that many believed this story to be myth. They claimed that Mrs. Wakefield’s discovery of the chocolate chip cookie was intentional. Yet some conspiracy theorists were convinced the rumors were true. So which story is true? That is the question that baffled my young brain. Though I could speculate and research all I wanted, there was no way to obtain a sure answer. So I gave up on my search for an answer, but my curiosity about the many stories has never faded.

So if I could be lucky enough to have dinner with any historical figure, I would choose Mrs. Ruth Graves Wakefield. Not only would we be able to bond over our mutual love for food and baking, but I could finally discover the true story behind how the chocolate chip cookie was born.