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The History of Chocolate Chip Cookies, an American Classic
A relatively recent invention, the first chocolate chip cookies may have possibly come about in part because of a happy accident
Sometimes we make mistakes and occasionally they turn out to be happy accidents. Was this actually the the case when it comes to chocolate chip cookies, one of the most popular sweets in the world?
Chocolate chip cookies are everywhere. As Jeremy Roth and Jamie K. White of CNN pointed out, doing a simple online search for recipes brings up more than two million results. One survey showed that the average American will eat approximately 19,000 cookies in their lifetime. With 53% of respondents indicating chocolate chip is their favorite, you can only imagine how many of that particular variety are consumed in this country.
Despite their unprecedented popularity, chocolate chip cookies are not only a fairly recent discovery, they actually may have been created by mistake.
In Whitman, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, sat the Toll House Inn, which was owned by Ruth Wakefield and her husband Kenneth. The lodge offered up rooms and meals to travelers. Mrs. Wakefield did all the cooking on the premises and one day in 1938 she got a little experimental in the…