The Great American Cookie?

Yes, it's true. Most experts agree that Fortune Cookies are another great American invention. These thin, crisp cookies, folded so that a slip of paper with a fortune can be placed inside, are probably not even Chinese. There is much debate over the origin of these tiny treats, but in the U.S.A., they have become a staple dessert in Chinese cuisine.

Three people claim to be the inventor of the fortune cookie.  Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant and gardener, designed the famous Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. Around 1900, the anti-Japanese mayor of that city fired him, but he was rehired under a subsequent mayor. To show his gratitude to his supporters and friends, in 1914, he created a cookie and placed a thank you note inside to be passed around at the Japanese Tea Garden. The restaurant began to provide them regularly, and in 1915 the cookies were exhibited at the Panama-Pacific Exhibit at the World's Fair in San Francisco.

In  1918, a few hundred miles south in Los Angeles, David Jung, a Chinese immigrant and founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company, created a similar cookie. Jung, a Presbyterian minister, included a strip of paper with an inspirational Bible verse in each cookie to pass out to the poor hanging around his restaurant.

Seichi Kito of Fugetsu-do in Los Angeles claims that he got the idea of putting a "fortune" in a cookie from visiting temples and shrines in Japan. He began distributing them to Chinese restaurants, which historically didn't serve desserts, to appease American customers. Although I'm probably the only person in America who actually likes the taste of fortune cookies.

In the early 1900's, San Francisco's Court of Historical Review, a mock psuedo-legal court, addressed the argument between Mr. Hagiwara and Mr. Jung, and found in favor of Mr. Hagiwara. This decision cannot be fully relied upon, and has been hotly contested by other historians.

There is some evidence that fortune cookies were initially made in Japan. Sometime in the 19th Century, a cookie was made that was very similar to a fortune cookie, except that it was slightly larger and darker, and made from sesame and miso, not butter and vanilla. A fortune was placed inside the cookie, but at the bend and not in the hollow part.

However, there is also a legend that links the fortune cookie to China. Supposedly, in the 14th Century, as part of the uprising against the Mongols that ruled China at the time, the revolutionaries used messages on paper in mooncakes to pass along the date of the event. Mongols apparently didn't eat mooncakes. It is thought that immigrants from China tried to copy the mooncakes, and created the fortune cookie.

Regardless of the true history, since World War II, these little gems of wisdom can be found in almost any Chinese restaurant in this country, but interestingly not in Japanese restaurants. Today, around 3 billion are sold each year. That's a lot of fortunes!