Sample compare-contrast essay, point-by-point pattern. Written as a review for food pages in a

newspaper or magazine, to be read by American consumers. By Courtney Lockwood.

A Closer Look at Chocolate Chip Cookies

In the 1800's, when Ruth Graves Wakefield introduced her new cookie creation in her

Massachusetts restaurant, Americans fell in love with the new taste sensation and returned again

and again to order a meal...and one of her Toll House Cookies for dessert. Since then,

Americans have had a love affair with chocolate chip cookies; they are the number one selling

cookie in the nation today. Unfortunately, what many Americans think of as a chocolate chip

cookie today is a dry, shelf-stable distant cousin to the soft, thick, home-baked cookie developed

by Miss Wakefield.

Two cookie companies, in particular, have enjoyed commercial success with their

packaged chocolate chip cookies, so our panel of food specialists conducted a taste test to see

how their cookies fared. We sampled dozens of “Chips Ahoy” and “Famous Amos” chocolate

chip cookies to see for ourselves which of these two modern versions of Ruth’s Toll House

Cookie could satisfy our taste buds. What we found is, while the two cookies have a very similar

appearance and texture, the “Famous Amos cookies had a richer, more buttery taste that our

panel preferred.

Both cookies were small and crisp and an even light brown. The Chips Ahoy cookie is

slightly larger – about two inches in diameter to the Famous Amos cookie’s one and one-half

inches – and is actually more attractive. The Chips Ahoy cookie is sprinkled with more

chocolate chips (it was topped with about 15 tiny chocolate chips while only three somewhat

larger chocolate chips were showing on the Famous Amos cookie) and has a “cleaner” and more

natural appearance with dark brown hills and light brown crevices that seem appropriate with a

baked product.

When the cookies are broken, the Chips Ahoy cookie breaks easily and seems crispy

compared to the small Famous Amos cookie that seemed dry and resistant to breaking. The larger

Chips Ahoy cookie broke cleanly while the Famous Amos cookie broke into multiple pieces and

crumbs.

We were all set to prefer the prettier Chips Ahoy product, and were surprised that taste

led us to the other product. The Chips Ahoy cookie had almost no taste; it was dry and crackerlike

with just a slight sweetness. The Famous Amos cookie seemed slightly sweeter and it had a

buttery, baked cookie taste – reminiscent of a graham cracker – that was missing in the other

brand. The Famous Amos chocolate chips seemed to have a stronger chocolate flavor; some of

us felt that the Chips Ahoy chocolate had a slightly grainy texture and coffee overtones.

On the whole, the Famous Amos cookie was preferred by nearly all our taste testers, and

many of us found that the little morsels were somewhat addictive. So, while neither cookie

comes close to the taste of a warm-from-the-oven homemade chocolate chip cookie, we found

that Famous Amos offers a tasty alternative, conveniently available on your supermarket shelf