Joan’s Country Kitchen

I love historic recipes and the original Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe has a very interesting history.

In 1930, Ruth Wakefield and her husband, Kenneth, bought a 1709, Cape Cod-style toll house situated halfway between Boston and New Bedford, Massachusetts, just outside the town of Whitman.

A toll house used to serve as an inn and eating establishment for road-weary travelers. Here passengers paid their toll, changed horses, and ate welcome home style meals. This particular toll house, purchased by the Wakefields, was turned into a lodge called The Toll House Inn, with Ruth baking for all the guests who stayed at there.

Ruth used historic and traditional Colonial recipes, for her guests and her delicious desserts began attracting people from all over New England. One favorite cookie recipe from the Colonial Days was called Butter Drop Do cookies. One day, while preparing these, she decided to cut up a Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate candy bar and add it to the cookie dough.

Ruth expected the chocolate to melt but instead, the chocolate bits held their shape and softened. This chocolate chip cookie recipe became extremely popular at the inn and it wasn’t long before Ruth’s cookie recipe was published in a Boston newspaper, then other newspapers in New England.

Ruth Wakefield’s chocolate chip cookie recipe caused the sale of Nestle Semi Sweet Chocolate Morsels to sky-rocket in the New England area. Soon, Ruth reached an agreement with the Nestle company which allowed them to print the recipe on the wrapper of the Semi-Sweet Chocolate bar and in exchange, Ruth received a life-time supply of chocolate so she could continue making delicious chocolate chip cookies, which Ruth had named Toll House Cookies, after her inn.

Nestle loved the idea so much, they even sold a special chopper with the candy bar for easier cutting. Then in 1939, the Nestle company started offering the tiny chocolate bits in ready to use packages. This best-selling chocolate chip continues to create delicious chocolate chip cookies today.

Get the original Toll house homemade chocolate cookie recipes, plus 700 more historic recipes from Ruth Wakefield in Toll House Tried and True Recipes Her book includes authentic recipes for Authentic recipes from the famous Toll House restaurant in Massachusetts, like popovers, Toll House baked beans, chocolate cake, crumb pudding, and, of course the original Toll House chocolate chip cookie recipe. Many historic recipes you don’t find anywhere else.

Read more about the Nestle Company’s Toll House chocolate chips at Very Best Baking.com

I love historic cookbooks and collect them wherever I go. I think one of the best ways to learn about life in the past is to know how people ate, what recipes they used and how women saw their role in life. Most historic

cookbooks, like Early American Cookery: “The Good Housekeeper,” 1841 by Sarah Josepha Hale, not only contains recipes but household hints for cleaning, caring for the sick, living on a budget and nurturing children, among other topics.

Sarah Josepha Hale was born in 1788, in New Hampshire and as an author and magazine editor, she was very influential in shaping the lives of 19th century women. She was the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book for 40 years. Godey’s, considered a forerunner of the modern women’s magazine, was the most widely read periodical in the US during the Civil War, with 150,000 subscribers.

Sarah Josepha Hale also wrote novels and our modern Thanksgiving dinner owes it’s beginnings to her description of that holiday dinner in Northwood; or, Life north and south: showing the true character of both.

The historic cookbook, Good Housekeeper, was written in 1839, when there were probably less than 30 American cookbooks published. Other cookbooks of the time focused on frugal living but Hale wanted to combine frugal with healthy, to teach “how to live well, and to be well while we live.” She includes “cheap dishes” like Cheap Bread, Pork and Beans and Pea Soup, but she also addresses the “proper quality of food” to promote health, especially for children, who, in the 1800’s, often died before their second birthday.

The Good Housekeeper also gives advice for cleaning and first aid. To clean straw carpets, “wash them in salt and water and wipe them with a clean dry cloth.” For burns, “Apply cotton wool dipped in oil as soon as possible and it it on till the fire is entirely out, which will usually take from two days to a week.”

The Good Housekeeper contains recipes for the sick as well. Here’s a recipe for gruel, commonly thought to be an easy to digest meal for the sick. “Sift the Indian meal through a find sieve; wet two spoonfuls of this meal with cold water, and beat it till there are no lumps; then stir it into a pint of boiling water, and let it boil half an hour, stirring all the time.”

Other sound health advice - “In setting out early to travel, a light breakfast before starting should always be taken; it is a great protection against cold, fatigue and exhaustion.”

The Good Housekeeper also contains recipes, naturally. There is a chapter on making bread, cooking meat from partridges to mutton, making sausage, salting meat to preserve it, how to make gravies, jams and jellies, and how to use herbs and spices.

Reading historic cookbooks helps us to realize how women’s lives are woven together with their sisters down through the years. Our concerns about family and managing a household haven’t really changed entirely - we’re all still interested in preparing healthy food on a budget, caring for our children and spouses. We have much in common with those who came before us and it’s good to know what they went through to give us the life we have today.

his holiday season, many are looking for money saving ideas. One easy way to save money on gift giving is

to make your own gifts in the kitchen. Homemade holiday treats are a wonderful way to say how much you care to everybody on your gift list. They’ll appreciate the gift even more, knowing you made it yourself.

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I love my crock pot. It’s easy to make just about any type of recipe in the crockpot from soups to desserts. I always love to add to my crockpot cookbook library and recently found this terrific addition by Stephanie O’Dea entitled Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking which even offers a crockpot version of banana bread, chai tea latte and caramel apples. This isnt’ just another crockpot cookbook!

Stephanie’s crockpot cookbook offers 454 pages of delicious-sounding, easy to understand recipes with ingredients you actually have on hand. I haven’t had a chance to try more than a few but Stephanie gives readers her family’s “verdict” on each recipe, including the specific verdict of her young children. If you’re a mom who wants to cook delicious food for hard to please youngsters, this book is for you.

Stephanie O’Dea’s blog, crockpot365.blogspot.com, is dedicated to slow cooking and offers more delicious recipes.