guests, who paid a toll to rest
and dine, while their horses were
being changed.
The Inn became well-known
for Ruth’s homemade Colonialinspired
desserts. Apparently,
while making either Butter
Drop Do (dough), butterscotch,
or chocolate cookies, she cut
and added pieces of a Nestlé
Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bar
into the dough, either because
she was just being creative, or
because she was out of baking
chocolate. Either way, she no
doubt assumed that the chocolate
would melt. Chef George
Boucher, who worked in the Inn’s
kitchen, claimed that vibrations
from the mixer caused the
chocolate to fall into her batter,
and that he implored her not
to remove it. I’m inclined to believe her version, since the
chocolate bar would not have been in pieces. Anyway, the
chocolate bits softened, but remained in tact, leading to delicious
chocolate chip cookies, that soon became popular, not only at
the Inn, but also throughout New England.
Nestlé’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate bars increased in popularity
too. Eventually, Ruth agreed to allow the Nestlé company to
print her “Toll House Cookie” recipe on the wrappers of its
bars in exchange for a lifetime supply of chocolate.
The company began pre-scoring its chocolate bars and
including a chopping gadget in order to facilitate creating
small pieces for baking Toll House Cookies. This led to the
production of small bits of chocolate being packaged sometime
after 1939, as Nestlé Toll House Real Semi-Sweet Chocolate
Morsels. The chocolate chips were an immediate hit; and the
Toll House Cookie recipe, also a hit, was included on the
wrappers.
Ruth’s Toll House Cookies became a sought-after inclusion
in care packages during World War II. Soldiers from New
England shared with young men from other parts of our country,
who then wrote home asking that the chocolate chip treats be
made and sent to them as well. Ruth was again bombarded
with recipe requests.
She authored a cookbook called Toll House Tried and True
Recipes. First published in 1936, her cookbook was reprinted
39 times with her “Toll House Chocolate Crunch Cookie”
included in the 1938 edition.
Ruth died in 1977, seven years before a New Year’s Eve
kitchen fire burned down the Toll House Inn. A Walgreens
pharmacy and a Wendy’s fast-food restaurant now occupy the
site of the Inn, which is remembered with a historic plaque.
Today, Ruth’s Toll House Cookies can be found in cookbooks,
bakeries, eateries and other places in a variety of versions.
They can be made chewy, crunchy, soft, cakey, crisp, thin,
thick, large, small, or even as bars, depending on the ratio of
and the types of ingredients used. Toll House cookies may
contain nuts, candies, peanut butter, chocolate swirls, and almost
any flavor or ingredient that suits your taste.
Toll House cookies were designated the Official State Cookie
of Massachusetts in 1997. They remain a favorite treat for most
“Cookie Monsters.”
The looser culinary definition of the term “nut” refers to any large,
oily, edible kernels that are found within a shell; while the botanical
meaning requires that the fruit with a hard shell and a seed known
as a “nut,” not open to release its seed.
Recently, someone told me that
some of my favorite nuts, such as cashews
and peanuts, are not nuts at all.
What makes something a nut?
L.O., St. Petersburg
A nut is a fruit composed of a hard shell and a seed that is
generally edible. Botanists have the additional requirement
that, in order to be classified as a nut, the shell should not open
to release the seed. Many dried seeds are referred to as “nuts.”
Therefore, some languages have several translations for the
word nut. Since most seeds are derived from nuts that naturally
free themselves from the shell, you may question the chestnut
and acorns that have hard shell walls that originate from a
compound ovary. Likewise, almonds, pecans, pistachios,
walnuts and Brazil nuts are not nuts in the botanical sense;
however, we use the common term “nut” to refer to any hardwalled
edible kernel.
In cuisine, the term “nut” is much broader than in botany.
For foodies, any large, oily kernels found within a shell are
commonly called nuts. It is the non-botanical nuts, such as
almonds; Brazil nuts; cashews; macadamias; pecans and the
peanut, which is a seed from a legume type of fruit, that
confuse us. The cashew is not a nut, but rather a seed from a
tropical tree from Northeastern Brazil; which are now grown
all over the world, from Nigeria to Vietnam. Therefore, unless
you are a botanist or a psychiatrist, don’t concern yourself
about what, or who, is or isn’t a nut. 9
EDITOR’S NOTE: If you have questions about the people, places or
things in the Tampa Bay area, please send them to "Ask Margaret" at
Tampa Bay Magazine, 2531 Landmark Drive, Suite 101, Clearwater,
Florida 33761 or fax them to (727) 796-0527. We regret that not all
questions can be answered.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2015 TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 95