National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day
Okay, I’m not gonna lie. I probably consumed a vast majority of Chips Ahoy® stock as a kid and ALWAYS with a tall glass of milk. I pretty much emersed the cookie into the milk until it was about to disintegrate and fall to the bottom. No milk, no cookie for me. I’m not a fan of sweets now, but I would indulge in chocolate chip cookies anymore.
Whether you prefer soft and chewy, hard and crunchy, thin and crispy, or thick and cake-like, there is a style of cookie for all to enjoy. So let’s take a little journey into the history of this day of celebration. Both when it originated and where the cookie itself began. Oh, and it’s #ChocolateChipCookieDay so get your cookie of choice and a preferred glass of dunking fluid, sit back and relax, and brush up on your history.
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This has been tricky and trying National Day to gather info. What I was able to find was the origin of just plain National Cookie Day. It is said that National Cookie Day was featured on Sesame Street’s calendar. I bet we don’t have to think too hard as to which character insisted upon that! This was first set as November 26, 1976. Then in 1980, in The Sesame Street Dictionary, Cookie Monster declared “Me proclaim today National Cookie Day!” Please tell me you just read that in your best Cookie Monster voice.
This proclamation didn’t officially change the date at that moment, but in 1987, Matt Nader (one of the founders of Blue Chip Cookie Company) proclaimed December 4th National Cookie Day. So it seems there’s been much debate on the date over the years and plenty of people to change it. This pretty much closes the subject on the history of National Cookie Day, but we still aren’t any closer to figuring out where this day originated.
History of the Chocolate Chip Cookie
So who do we have to thank for all the hubbub with these cookie days? Her name was Ruth Graves Wakefield and she was from Whitman, MA. Ms. Wakefield owned an inn by the name of, you guessed it, Toll House Inn located in Whitman, MA. If you didn’t guess, I bet you can guess where this is going now.
There is a story that was told about how the cookie was created that apparently isn’t true.
In the book, “The Great American Chocolate Chip Cookie Book“ by Carolyn Wyman, Ms. Wyman states that while on a return trip to Egypt, Ms. Wakefield came up with the idea. She had been serving butterscotch nut cookies at the inn and started thinking of ways to improve upon them. People had been using chocolate in other forms of dessert at that time, but not in cookies. Ruth did credit her long-time kitchen help, Sue Brides, with helping her to create the cookie. Ms. Brides passed that recipe along to her daughter and, I believe, her replacement in the Toll House kitchen.
For decades we have all been making what we believed to be the original Toll House Cookie recipe. The recipe is found on the back of all the Toll House chocolate chip bags. According to an interview back in 2017 with Peg, by News Center 5 out of Boston, the real recipe is below.
For decades we have all been making what we believed to be the original Toll House Cookie recipe found on the back of all the Toll House chocolate chip bags. According to an interview back in 2017 with Peg by News Center 5 out of Boston, the real recipe is in this post.
