If you love chocolate chip cookies, you and your taste buds have Ruth Wakefeild to thank.

American entrepreneur Ruth Graves Wakefield was unusual for her time: she was a university graduate who began her career touring as a dietician to teach people about food and nutrition. In 1930, she and her husband bought the Toll House Inn, which quickly became famous for Wakefield's food, especially her desserts.

However, Wakefield wanted to offer guests something different and new. She took an ice pick to a block of chocolate, added it to her cookie dough, and the chocolate chip cookie was born. When Wakefield reissued her best-selling cookbook, she added the Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie to the dessert section; it was so popular that chocolate company Nestle noticed a spike in demand for their semi-sweet chocolate, and approached Wakefield about the rights to the recipe.

Soon Nestle was making semi-sweet chips specifically for cookies, and printing the Toll House cookie recipe on every box. And Wakefield got a sweet though minimally profitable payout — one dollar plus a lifetime supply of chocolate!


Sources: amightygirl and NYTimes