Chocolate chips were invented after chocolate chip cookies.
Ruth Wakefield was no cookie-cutter baker. In fact, she is widely credited with developing the world’s first recipe for chocolate chip cookies. In 1937, Wakefield and her husband, Kenneth, owned the popular Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. While mulling new desserts to serve at the inn’s restaurant, she decided to make a batch of Butter Drop Do pecan cookies (a thin butterscotch treat) with an alteration, using semisweet chocolate instead of baker’s chocolate. Rather than melting in the baker’s chocolate, she used an ice pick to cut the semisweet chocolate into tiny pieces. Upon removing the cookies from the oven, Wakefield found that the semisweet chocolate had held its shape much better than baker’s chocolate, which tended to spread throughout the dough during baking to create a chocolate-flavored cookie. These cookies, instead, had sweet little nuggets of chocolate studded throughout. The recipe for the treats — known as Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookies — was included in a late 1930s edition of her cookbook, Ruth Wakefield’s Tried and True Recipes.
The cookies were a huge success, and Nestlé hired Wakefield as a recipe consultant in 1939, the same year they bought the rights to print her recipe on packages of their semisweet chocolate bars. To help customers create their own bits of chocolate, the bars came pre-scored in 160 segments, with an enclosed cutting tool. Around 1940 — three years after that first batch of chocolate chip cookies appeared fresh out of the oven — Nestlé began selling bags of Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels, which some dubbed “chocolate chips.” By 1941, “chocolate chip cookies” was the universally recognized name for the delicious treat. An updated version of Wakefield’s recipe, called Original Nestlé Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies, still appears on every bag of morsels. For her contributions to Nestlé, Wakefield reportedly received a lifetime supply of chocolate.
Sesame Street’s resident treat fanatic first revealed his given name in a 2004 episode. During a flashback to his high-chair years, this furry blue Muppet (voiced by puppeteer David Rudman) sings about his introduction to cookies. Mid-duet with his mom, the bonneted baby monster rhymes, “Me was just a mild-mannered little kid/In fact, back then, me think me name was Sid.” The show’s official Twitter account later confirmed that “Sid” was short for “Sidney.” In a 2017 video interview, Cookie Monster reiterated, “Me real name’s Sid Monster.” Incidentally, when Rudman wears the puppet, the back of Cookie Monster’s throat runs down Rudman’s sleeve to give the appearance that Cookie Monster is really eating. The baked treats Cookie Monster “consumes” are actually decorated rice cakes, since the oils from real cookies would damage the puppet.
