Cookie Connection: Drawn By Chocolate Chips, Nestlé Exec To Address FSU Grads

FRAMINGHAM, MA — The leader of a “global kitchen” with historic roots in Europe is coming to deliver a graduation speech in Framingham, where other culinary history began.

Nelson Peña, from international food conglomerate Nestlé, will deliver the keynote address at Framingham State University’s commencement on May 23.

Peña works in Virginia as president of the Nestlé USA Global Culinary Kitchen. Nestlé, the largest food company in the world, has headquarters in Switzerland. Both have recognized the work of an FSU grad, Ruth Graves Wakefield, class of 1924.

Wakefield invented the chocolate-chip cookie.

During the 1930s, she and her husband ran the Toll House Inn – a lodge and restaurant in Whitman that served hundreds of guests a day.

Wakefield, who held a degree in household arts from Framingham State, experimented regularly in the kitchen with baking recipes. In 1937 she came up with the idea of using chocolate morsels that she chopped up from a bar of Nestlé semisweet.

Rather than simply melting, the chips stayed intact. The cookie caught on, and Wakefield eventually signed a contract with Nestlé that gave her a lifetime supply of chocolate.

The company, which started making chocolate in the 1870s, got rights to the Toll House name and began making the chips – printing the cookie recipe on each package. The tradition continues today.

At Nestlé, Peña is responsible for the Toll House brand.

He said in a statement, “The story reminds us that innovation often begins with the courage to share an idea or take a chance.

“I’m honored to celebrate the next generation of Framingham State graduates, and I look forward to seeing how they bring their own ideas into the world.”

Framingham State will award about 500 undergraduate degrees on Saturday, May 23, a spokesperson said. The ceremony is scheduled for 10 a.m. at the DCU Center in Worcester.