By Brad Dison
In 1930, Kenneth and Ruth Wakefield bought an old colonial house on Bedford Street in Whitman, Massachusetts. At the time, the house was located on a toll road about halfway between Boston and New Bedford, Massachusetts. Because it was located on the toll road, the Wakefields called it the Toll House Inn. The Wakefields advertised that the house was built in 1709, but some people claimed the house was built in 1817 and the earlier date was used as a marketing ploy. The Wakefields rented rooms to tourists who were passing between the two historic towns. Ruth, a former dietician, served home-cooked meals to travelers. Before long, people began coming to the inn, not for its colonial charm, but for Ruth’s wonderful cooking. The inn became a tourist destination in itself.
Guests began asking for Ruth’s recipes, which she was happy to share. So successful was her cooking that a Boston newspaper printed some of her recipes. In 1936, Ruth compiled her “Tried and True Recipes” into a cookbook which became a best seller. Her most requested recipe was for a dessert that came about in 1930 as an accident. Ruth had run out of an ingredient without which the dessert would be a disaster. She had no time to go to a grocery store to buy more powdered baker’s chocolate, so she substituted it with broken pieces of a chocolate bar. When she removed the dessert from the oven, she was disappointed. The chocolate had not melted properly, but there was no time to make another dessert. She had no choice but to serve it as it was. She watched anxiously as her guests tried the dessert. Most of her guests replied, not with words, but with “Mmmmm.” Everyone loved her accidental creation and wanted her recipe. In her recipe, Ruth included the name of the company which made the chocolate bars. So many people began making the dessert that the company noticed an increase in sales of their chocolate bar.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted Ruth’s recipe. The company which made the chocolate bar used in Ruth’s creation also wanted the recipe, so they made Ruth an offer. In exchange for the rights to her recipe, they would provide her with a lifetime supply of chocolate. Ruth had been giving the recipe away to her guests and had shared it in Boston newspapers, so she instantly accepted their proposition. The company began packaging chocolate specifically for Ruth’s recipe and, to help sales, the company printed Ruth’s recipe on every package.
In 1966, the Wakefields sold the inn and retired. In 1984, seven years after Ruth’s death, the inn was destroyed by a fire which began in the kitchen, the same kitchen that she had accidentally invented one of the most beloved desserts in history—Chocolate Chip Cookies. Rather than being named after herself, Ruth named her cookie recipe after the inn. You and I know them as Nestle’s Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. “Mmmmm.”
Sources:
1. Aimee Tucker, “Toll House Cookies – the Original Chocolate Chip Cookie,” New England, October 13, 2021,https://newengland.com/food/
2. “Ruth Jones Graves Wakefield (1903-1977) – Find A Grave,” Findagrave.com, https://www.findagrave.com/
3. The Daily Item (Lynn, Massachusetts), April 1, 1937, p.7.
