While growing up in Massachusetts my mom’s Toll House Cookies were a fave in our home. It was a mystery to me why my friends gave them another name: Chocolate Chip Cookies. Years later, I learned that the originator of these delicious treats filled with chocolate morsels was Ruth Wakefield. Ruth & her hubby, Kenneth, owned a historical home in Whitman, MA where they ran a restaurant, the Toll House Inn. One day in the 1930’s before baking her fave Butter Drop Do with baker’s chocolate cookies, she learned that there was no chocolate to be found in her kitchen. So, she broke a Nestle’s Chocolate Bar into small pieces and added them into the dough, expecting the pieces to melt while baking. The result was the Toll House Cookie. It became a popular recipe. Nestle still publishes it on the backside of their Nestle Semi Sweet Morsel packages. Either name you choose - Chocolate Chip or Toll House – this cookie is yummy!
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After Noah Webster graduated from Yale, he became a teacher. It was the time period after the Revolutionary War and the books that children used still came from England. Americans used words the people of England did not use and he wanted American school children to have a book containing words that they used. He included the words squash and skunk in his book, including definitions. These words were unknown in England. "Colour" was spelled "color". Many years later the Merriam Brothers in Springfield, MA purchased the rights to his 1841 edition. Today, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is a household name! Click links for more info.
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