Ruth Graves Wakefield
Ruth Graves Wakefield graduated from the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts in 1924. After graduation, she worked as a dietitian and food lecturer. She and her husband bought and ran the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachussets. Her decision to chop up chocolate and put them into her cookies saw the birth of the Toll House or chocolate chip cookie. She approached the Nestle company and they agreed to put Ruth's recipe on Nestle's chocolate wrappers. In 1939, Nestle marketed the small chips of chocolate that could be used in making chocolate chip cookies. Ruth Wakefield's toll house or chocolate chip cookies would pave the way for cookie and food empires of contemporary women such as Debbie Fields and Martha Stewart.
Chicomecoatl Aztec Goddess of Food
References:
Patently Female by Ethlie Ann Vare and Greg Ptacek (John Wiley and Sons, 2002), pp.38.Web Sites:
Chocolate Chip Cookie HistoryChocolate History
Sweet History
Ruth Wakefield
