Chocolate Chip Cookies
A plate of chocolate chip cookies



There are conflicting stories about the origin of the chocolate chip cookie, but all agree that the cookie was developed by Ruth Wakefield in 1933. Mrs. Wakefield owned the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts, a very popular restaurant in the 1930s. She gave Nestlé the rights to print her recipe on packages of their chocolate morsels.
The Nestlé version of the origin states that Mrs. Wakefield was making chocolate cookies but ran out of regular baker's chocolate, so she substituted it with broken pieces of semi-sweet chocolate, thinking that it would melt and mix into the batter. It did not, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. Contradicting Nestlé's claim, Mrs. Cavanagh, a former employee at the Inn, states that Mrs. Wakefield was already an accomplished chef and knew that the chocolate would not melt while baking.
During WWII, GI's from Massachusetts 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. Thus, began the nation-wide craze for the chocolate chip cookie.
On July 9, 1997 Massachusetts designated the chocolate chip cookie as the Official State Cookie to honor the cookies created in that state.