Fortune Cookie History

http://www.chinese-fortune-cookie.com/fortune-cookie-history.html
#1 A Chinese immigrant, David Jung, living in Los Angeles and founder of the Hong Kong
Noodle Company invented the fortune cookie in 1918.
The story goes that David Jung was concerned with all the poor he saw in the streets near
his shop. So he created a cookie to pass out to them for free. Each cookie contained an
inspirational verse written by the local Presbyterian minister.
#2 A Japanese immigrant named Makoto Hagiwara invented the fortune cookie in San
Francisco in 1914. He was the designer of the famous Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate
Park, San Francisco.
The fortune cookie was not introduced to the Chinese until the 1990's and were amusingly
advertised as "Genuine American Fortune Cookies".

Makoto was fired by an anti-Japanese mayor of the time and suffered much hardship until a
later mayor reinstated him. Being thankful to those who had stood by him during this time
he created a cookie that contained a "thank-you" note. These became very popular and so
began serving them regularly. And then in 1915 they were displayed at World Fair, in San
Francisco.
#3 Way back in 13th and 14th Centuries, China was occupied by the Mongols. Chu Yuan
Chang, a patriotic revolutionary of the time made plans for an uprising against the Mongols.
In order to instruct all the Chinese of the date of the uprising, messages were hidden in
'Moon Cakes'. Moon Cakes contained a 'yolk' of Lotus Paste which the Mongols did not
appreciate so this yolk was replaced with rice paper messages. The uprising was successful
and the Ming Dynasty was born.
Thus a tradition of giving cakes with messages was born and a Moon Festival regularly
celebrated.
It is thought that this legend is what inspired the Chinese 49'ers who worked on the
construction of the great American Railways through the Sierra Nevada to California. At
Moon Festival time they did not have any moon cakes but only biscuits. So out of necessity
they improvised and the Fortune Cookie was born.
So, while we may never know the real beginning of the Fortune Cookie, we do know the first
ones were made by chopsticks. And, it was not until 1964, when Edward Louie of San
Francisco's Lotus Fortune Cookie Company invented a machine to make the cookies.
Today it is rare not to finish a Chinese meal in America or Canada without the Fortune
Cookie.
Whether you actually eat it or not, is not important. It's the "fortune" inside that matters.
And it matters heaps, as one company alone makes 60 million Chinese Fortune Cookies a
month.
http://www.fortunecookie.demon.co.uk/fhistory.html

For many centuries the Chinese have marked special occasions and festival times such as harvest
and New Year with the giving and receiving of Moon Cakes these were made from Lotus Nut
Paste.

During the 13th and 14th centuries China was occupied by the Mongols. When plans were made
in Peking for a popular uprising to oust the invaders, much thought was given how news of the
date of the uprising could be circulated without alerting the Mongols.
The story goes that the Mongols had no taste for Lotus Nut Paste and so the Chinese hid the
message containing the date in the middle of their Moon Cakes replacing the yolk with secret
messages. Patriotic revolutionary, Chu Yuan Chang took on the disguise of a Taoist priest and
entered occupied walled cities handing out Moon Cakes. These were the instructions to co-
ordinate the uprising which successfully formed the basis of the Ming Dynasty.
Thus the tradition of giving cakes with messages was born and became a popular way of
expressing wishes of goodwill or good fortune on an important occasion.
The origins of the Fortune Cookie as we know it today were laid down by the Chinese 49'ers
who worked on the building of the great American railways through the Sierra Nevada into
California.
Work was very hard and pleasures were few in isolated camps, those hard workers had only
biscuits with happy messages inside, to exchange at the Moon festival instead of traditional
cakes with happy messages, thus the FORTUNE COOKIE was born. This became something of
a cottage industry and as the Chinese settled in San Francisco after the railway and the Gold
boom the custom continued. Today it is almost impossible to have a Chinese meal in America
and Canada without finishing with a Fortune Cookie.
More and more businesses and even governments are having promotional messages printed on
the opposite side to the fortune. The HONG KONG police used them in anti - drugs campaigns
and the US followed.
The first automated production of Fortune Cookies took place in America in 1964 before that
they were made by hand. In recent years fully automated facilities have been set up in the UK to
produce Fortune Cookies that are now gaining increasing popularity in Chinese restaurants and
Take-Aways across the U.K. and Europe.
( HAPPINESS IS A FORTUNE COOKIE )
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/fortunecookies.html

Like chop suey, fortune cookies are an American invention. They originated in California, but
who the actual inventor was, and which city in California is the true home of the fortune cookie,
has continued to be a matter of debate. Unequivocally not Chinese, the fortune cookie may in
fact not even be Chinese American.
Chinese or Japanese, Angelino or San Franciscan?
One history of the fortune cookie claims that David Jung, a Chinese immigrant living in Los
Angeles and founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company, invented the cookie in 1918.
Concerned about the poor he saw wandering near his shop, he created the cookie and passed
them out free on the streets. Each cookie contained a strip of paper with an inspirational Bible
scripture on it, written for Jung by a Presbyterian minister.
Another history claims that the fortune cookie was invented in San Francisco by a Japanese
immigrant named Makoto Hagiwara. Hagiwara was a gardener who designed the famous
Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. An anti-Japanese mayor fired him from his job
around the turn of the century, but later a new mayor reinstated him. Grateful to those who had
stood by him during his period of hardship, Hagiwara created a cookie in 1914 that included a
thank you note inside. He passed them out at the Japanese Tea Garden, and began serving them
there regularly. In 1915, they were displayed at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, San Francisco's
world fair.
Judicial Activism
In 1983, San Francisco's pseudo-legal Court of Historical Review held a mock trial to determine
the origins of the fortune cookie. (In the past, the Court had ruled on such pressing topics as the
veracity of Mark Twain's quote, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San
Francisco" and the origins of the Martini. *) To no one's surprise, the judge (a real-life federal
judge from San Francisco) ruled in favor of San Francisco. Included among the evidence was a
fortune cookie whose message read: "S.F. Judge who rules for L.A. Not Very Smart Cookie."
Equally unsurprising, Los Angeles has denounced the ruling.
From Confucius to Smiley Faces
Fortune cookies became common in Chinese restaurants after World War II. Desserts were not
traditionally part of Chinese cuisine, and the cookies thus offered Americans something familiar
with an exotic flair.
Although there have been a few cases reported of individuals actually liking the texture and
flavor of fortune cookies, most consider the fortune to be the essence of the cookie. Early
fortunes featured Biblical sayings, or aphorisms from Confucius, Aesop, or Ben Franklin. Later,
fortunes included recommended lottery numbers, smiley faces, jokes, and sage, if hackneyed,
advice. Politicians have used them in campaigns, and fortunes have been customized for
weddings and birthday parties. Today messages are variously cryptic, nonsensical, feel-good,
hectoring, bland, or mystifying.
Read more: The History of the Fortune Cookie — Infoplease.com
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/fortunecookies.html#ixzz11MQa3M3k
  1847 - Crackers were invented by Thomas J. Smith of London in 1847, as a
184 way to sell his bon-bon sweets. First he added mottos to the wrappers, like
7 you get with fortune cookies, but on its own, it wasn't enough. Then he
added a small explosive and a cheap gift, he ...Crackers were invented by
Thomas J. Smith of London in 1847, as a way to sell his bon-bon sweets.
First he added mottos to the wrappers, like you get with fortune cookies, but
on its own, it wasn't enough. Then he added a small explosive and a cheap
gift, he called it the Cossack and the rest is history. Now Cossacks or
Crackers are still made by Tom Smith Ltd and are exported all over the
world, millions of them are pulled on Christmas Day.

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From Win Tickets to Music and Football events with Carling.com - Members
… - Related web pages
www.carling.com/members/moresnippets.html ...

189 1892 - The first fortune cookies reached Chinese shores in 1892. They were
2 imported from Brooklyn ... . Unequivocally not Chinese, the fortune cookie
may in fact not even be Chinese American. One history of the fortune cookie
claims that David Jung, a Chinese ...The first fortune cookies reached
Chinese shores in 1892. They were imported from Brooklyn ... .
Unequivocally not Chinese, the fortune cookie may in fact not even be
Chinese American. One history of the fortune cookie claims that David Jung,
a Chinese immigrant living in Los Angeles and founder of the Hong .. .

Show less
From Chinese Wonton Soup Blogs - Page 2 | ifood.tv - Related web pages
www.ifood.tv/network/chinese_wonton_soup/blogs/1

190 1909 - Although there are multiple theories on their origins, it is probable
9 that they were invented in 1909 San Francisco by Makoto Hagiwara, a
Japanese man. Although the world's largest manufacturer of fortune cookies
 briefly operated a factory in China, it closed ...As you probably already
know, fortune cookies, though they are served almost exclusively in Chinese
restaurants, have pretty much nothing to do with China. Although there are
multiple theories on their origins, it is probable that they were invented in
1909 San Francisco by Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese man. Although the
world's largest manufacturer of fortune cookies briefly operated a factory in
China, it closed quickly. As vice president Richard Leung opined, "Fortune ...

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From Amuse Bouche: What's Up With Fortune Cookies? -- Grub Street Boston
- Related web pages
boston.grubstreet.com/2007/06 ...

191 1916 - A Los Angeles preacher, Baker David Jung is credited in created the
6 fortune cookie in 1916. His fortune cookies enclosed strips of paper bearing
Biblical passages. He later launched the Hong Kong Noodle Company, which
produced cookies with sayings purported ...A Los Angeles preacher, Baker
David Jung is credited in created the fortune cookie in 1916. His fortune
cookies enclosed strips of paper bearing Biblical passages. He later launched
the Hong Kong Noodle Company, which produced cookies with sayings
purported to be ancient Chinese aphorisms. Fortune cookies were later
adopted in Chinese restaurants all over the country.

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From Trivia Matters - Related web pages
triviamatters.blogspot.com/

191 1918 - Where do fortune cookies originate from Fortune cookies were
8 invented in California in 1918. Answered 1 hr 7 min ago What does it mean if
you get a fortune cookie with a blank fortune inside A fortune cookie with a
blank fortune means you get to write your own good fortune ...
 From Can you Tell me some fortune cookies sayings | ChaCha Answers -
Related web pages
www.chacha.com/question/can-you-tell-me-some ...

196 1964 - Fortune cookies were originally made by hand using chopsticks. In
4 1964, Edward Louie of San Francisco's Lotus Fortune Cookie Company,
automated the process by creating a machine that folds the dough and slips
in the fortune. Today, the world's largest fortune ...Fortune cookies were
originally made by hand using chopsticks. In 1964, Edward Louie of San
Francisco's Lotus Fortune Cookie Company, automated the process by
creating a machine that folds the dough and slips in the fortune. Today, the
world's largest fortune cookie manufacturer, Wonton Food Inc. of Long Island
CIty, Queens ships out 60 million cookies a month.

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From The History of the Fortune Cookie — Infoplease.com - Related web
pages
www.infoplease.com/spot/fortunecookies.html

198 1987 - Profile: Established in 1987, we are a specialized manufacturer of

7 fortune cookies. Our company offers various products such as traditional
fortune cookies , flavored fortune cookies, chocolate covered fortune
cookies, custom fortune cookies, gigantic fortune ...Profile: Established in
1987, we are a specialized manufacturer of fortune cookies. Our company
offers various products such as traditional fortune cookies , flavored fortune
cookies, chocolate covered fortune cookies, custom fortune cookies, gigantic
fortune cookies, fortune cookie gifts, Chinese takeout … More wholesale
information on this manufacturer. Bakery Manufacturer Profile | Website |
Contact Supplier.

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 From Bakery and Cakes International Wholesale Suppliers - Wholesale
Bakery … - Related web pages
www.esources.co.uk/international-suppliers/169/8/

199 Feb 1, 1995 - These days any kind of message can wind up in a fortune
5 cookie Some restaurateurs actually are buying raucous or insulting fortune
cookies as marketing tools The story still circulates about a shipment of
Xrated fortune cookies that mistakenly wound up being distributed at a
wedding ...
From AS AMERICAN AS FORTUNE COOKIES - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/mcall/access/92639147 ...

200 Sep 14, 2003 - Vaunting the art a Christie's executive conjectured that
3 fortune cookies with their cheerful adages inject a measure of optimism into
an often .... Stanley Karnow a former Washington Post correspondent
received the 1990 Pulitzer Prize in history forIn Our Image America's Empire
in the ...
From May You Find Heaps of Good Fortune - Related web pages
pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access ...

200 Mar 30, 2005 - Intrigued by the Powerball drawing of March 30, 2005, which
5 produced an inordinate quantity of winning lottery tickets because the lucky
numbers had turned up in fortune cookies all around the country, Lee rides
her obsession on a three-year, 42-state, 23 ...Intrigued by the Powerball
drawing of March 30, 2005, which produced an inordinate quantity of
winning lottery tickets because the lucky numbers had turned up in fortune
cookies all around the country, Lee rides her obsession on a three-year, 42-
state, 23-country journey during which she discovers that fortune cookies,
like so much about America's Chinese restaurants, aren't really Chinese.

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From THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES
www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/books/review/Stern ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/dining/16fort.html?_r=1
Solving a Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside a Cookie
Some 3 billion fortune cookies are made each year, almost all in the United States.
But the crisp cookies wrapped around enigmatic sayings have spread around the
world. They are served in Chinese restaurants in Britain, Mexico, Italy, France and
elsewhere. In India, they taste more like butter cookies. A surprisingly high number
of winning tickets in Brazil's national lottery in 2004 were traced to lucky numbers
from fortune cookies distributed by a Chinese restaurant chain called Chinatown.

But there is one place where fortune cookies are conspicuously absent: China.
Now a researcher in Japan believes she can explain the disconnect, which has long perplexed
American tourists in China. Fortune cookies, Yasuko Nakamachi says, are almost certainly
originally from Japan.
Her prime pieces of evidence are the generations-old small family bakeries making obscure
fortune cookie-shaped crackers by hand near a temple outside Kyoto. She has also turned up
many references to the cookies in Japanese literature and history, including an 1878 image of a
man making them in a bakery - decades before the first reports of American fortune cookies.
The idea that fortune cookies come from Japan is counterintuitive, to say the least. "I am
surprised," said Derrick Wong, the vice president of the largest fortune cookie manufacturer in
the world, Wonton Food, based in Brooklyn. “People see it and think of it as a Chinese food
dessert, not a Japanese food dessert,” he said. But, he conceded, “The weakest part of the
Chinese menu is dessert.”
Ms. Nakamachi, a folklore and history graduate student at Kanagawa University outside Tokyo,
has spent more than six years trying to establish the Japanese origin of the fortune cookie, much
of that at National Diet Library (the Japanese equivalent of the Library of Congress). She has
sifted through thousands of old documents and drawings. She has also traveled to temples and
shrines across the country, conducting interviews to piece together the history of fortune-telling
within Japanese desserts.
Ms. Nakamachi, who has long had an interest in the history of sweets and snacks, saw her first
fortune cookie in the 1980s in a New York City Chinese restaurant. At that time she was merely
impressed with Chinese ingenuity, finding the cookies an amusing and clever idea.
It was only in the late 1990s, outside Kyoto near one of the most popular Shinto shrines in Japan,
that she saw that familiar shape at a family bakery called Sohonke Hogyokudo.
“These were exactly like fortune cookies,” she said. “They were shaped exactly the same and
there were fortunes.”
The cookies were made by hand by a young man who held black grills over a flame. The grills
contain round molds into which batter is poured, something like a small waffle iron. Little pieces
of paper were folded into the cookies while they were still warm. With that sighting, Ms.
Nakamachi’s long research mission began.
A visit to the Hogyokudo shop revealed that the Japanese fortune cookies Ms. Nakamachi found
there and at a handful of nearby bakers differ in some ways from the ones that Americans receive
at the end of a meal with the check and a handful of orange wedges. They are bigger and
browner, as their batter contains sesame and miso rather than vanilla and butter. The fortunes are
not stuffed inside, but are pinched in the cookie’s fold. (Think of the cookie as a Pac-Man: the
paper is tucked into Pac-Man’s mouth rather than inside his body.) Still, the family resemblance
is undeniable.
“People don’t realize this is the real thing because American fortune cookies are popular right
now,” said Takeshi Matsuhisa as he deftly folded the hot wafers into the familiar curved shape.
His family has owned the bakery for three generations, although the local tradition of making the
cookies predates their store. Decades ago, many confectioneries and candies came with little
fortunes inside, Mr. Matsuhisa said.
“Then, the companies realized it wasn’t such a good idea to put pieces of paper in candy, so then
they all disappeared,” he added. The fear that people would accidentally eat the fortune is one
reason his family now puts the paper outside the cookie.
he bakery has used the same 23 fortunes for decades. (In contrast, Wonton Food
has a database of well over 10,000 fortunes.) Hogyokudo’s fortunes are more poetic
than prophetic, although some nearby bakeries use newer fortunes that give advice
or make predictions. One from Inariya, a shop across from the Shinto shrine,
contains the advice, “To ward off lower back pain or joint problems, undertake some
at-home measures like yoga.”

As she researched the cookie’s Japanese origins, among the most persuasive pieces of evidence
Ms. Nakamachi found was an illustration from a 19th-century book of stories, “Moshiogusa
Kinsei Kidan.”
A character in one of the tales is an apprentice in a senbei store. In Japan, the cookies are called,
variously, tsujiura senbei (“fortune crackers”), omikuji senbei (“written fortune crackers”), and
suzu senbei (“bell crackers”).
The apprentice appears to be grilling wafers in black irons over coals, the same way they are
made in Hogyokudo and other present-day bakeries. A sign above him reads “tsujiura senbei”
and next to him are tubs filled with little round shapes — the tsujiura senbei themselves.
The book, story and illustration are all dated 1878. The families of Japanese or Chinese
immigrants in California that claim to have invented or popularized fortune cookies all date the
cookie’s appearance between 1907 and 1914.
The illustration was the kind of needle in a haystack discovery academics yearn for. “It’s very
rare to see artwork of a thing being made,” Ms. Nakamachi said. “You just don’t see that.”
She found other historical traces of the cookies as well. In a work of fiction by Tamenaga
Shunsui, who lived between 1790 and 1843, a woman tries to placate two other women with
tsujiura senbei that contain fortunes.
Ms. Nakamachi’s work, originally published in 2004 as part of a Kanagawa University report,
has been picked up by some publications in Japan. A few customers have bought senbei from
Hogyokudo, the Matsuhisa family said. But otherwise, the paper has drawn limited attention,
perhaps because fortune cookies are not well known in Japan.
If fortune cookies are Japanese in origin, how did they become a mainstay of American Chinese
restaurants? To understand this, Ms. Nakamachi has made two trips to the United States,
focusing on San Francisco and Los Angeles, where she interviewed the descendants of Japanese
and Chinese immigrant families who made fortune cookies.
The cookie’s path is relatively easy to trace back to World War II. At that time they were a
regional specialty, served in California Chinese restaurants, where they were known as “fortune
tea cakes.” There, according to later interviews with fortune cookie makers, they were
encountered by military personnel on the way back from the Pacific Theater. When these
veterans returned home, they would ask their local Chinese restaurants why they didn’t serve
fortune cookies as the San Francisco restaurants did.
The cookies rapidly spread across the country. By the late 1950s, an estimated 250 million
fortune cookies were being produced each year by dozens of small Chinese bakeries and fortune
cookie companies. One of the larger outfits was Lotus Fortune in San Francisco, whose founder,
Edward Louie, invented an automatic fortune cookie machine. By 1960, fortune cookies had
become such a mainstay of American culture that they were used in two presidential campaigns:
Adlai Stevenson’s and Stuart Symington’s.
But prior to World War II, the history is murky. A number of immigrant families in California,
mostly Japanese, have laid claim to introducing or popularizing the fortune cookie. Among them
are the descendants of Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant who oversaw the Japanese Tea
Garden built in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in the 1890s. Visitors to the garden were
served fortune cookies made by a San Francisco bakery, Benkyodo.
A few Los Angeles-based businesses also made fortune cookies in the same era:
Fugetsudo, a family bakery that has operated in Japantown for over a century,
except during World War II; Umeya, one of the earliest mass-producers of fortune
cookies in Southern California, and the Hong Kong Noodle company, a Chinese-
owned business. Fugetsudo and Benkyodo both have discovered their original
“kata” black iron grills, almost identical to the ones that are used today in the Kyoto
bakery.

“Maybe the packaging of fortune cookie must say ‘Japanese fortune cookie — made in Japan,’ ”
said Gary Ono, whose grandfather founded Benkyodo.
Ms. Nakamachi is still unsure how exactly fortune cookies made the jump to Chinese restaurants.
But during the 1920s and 1930s, many Japanese immigrants in California owned chop suey
restaurants, which served Americanized Chinese cuisine. The Umeya bakery distributed fortune
cookies to well over 100 such restaurants in southern and central California.
“At one point the Japanese must have said, fish head and rice and pickles must not go over well
with the American population,” said Mr. Ono, who has made a campaign of documenting the
history of the fortune cookie through interviews with his relatives and by publicizing the
discovery of the kata grills.
Early on, Chinese-owned restaurants discovered the cookies, too. Ms. Nakamachi speculates that
Chinese-owned manufacturers began to take over fortune cookie production during World War
II, when Japanese bakeries all over the West Coast closed as Japanese-Americans were rounded
up and sent to internment camps.
Mr. Wong pointed out: “The Japanese may have invented the fortune cookie. But the Chinese
people really explored the potential of the fortune cookie. It’s Chinese-American culture. It only
happens here, not in China.”
That sentiment is echoed among some descendants of the Japanese immigrants who played an
early role in fortune cookies. “If the family had decided to sell fortune cookies, they would have
never done it as successfully as the Chinese have,” said Douglas Dawkins, the great-great-
grandson of Makoto Hagiwara. “I think it’s great. I really don’t think the fortune cookie would
have taken off if it hadn’t been popularized in such a wide venue.”
http://www.ehow.com/about_5369487_history-fortune-cookie.html

The History of Fortune Cookie

By John Zaremba, eHow Contributor

updated: September 10, 2009

I want to do this! What's This?

Nowhere in the world of food is there a symbol as familiar and beloved as the Chinese Fortune
cookie. Though it is most closely associated with Chinese culture and cuisine, there is strong
evidence that the cookies originated either in Japan, or with Japanese immigrants. Theories
abound, but what is certain is that no matter how the cookie originated, it has become a
permanent part of Chinese-American culture.

Los Angeles Folk Theory

1. One story talks of David Jung, a Chinese immigrant living in Los Angeles. He
founded the Hong Kong Noodle Company and invented the fortune cookie in
1918. Apparently Jung was worried with the legions of poor he saw wandering
the streets near his shop, so he made cookies to give them for free and
enclosed in them a hope-filled verse written by a local Presbyterian minister.

San Francisco Folk Theory

2. Some believe the fortune cookie originated in San Francisco and its roots are
with the Japanese, not the Chinese. The story is that Makoto Hagiwara, a
Japanese immigrant and designer of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate
Park, invented the fortune cookie in 1914. He was fired by an anti-Japanese
mayor and reinstated by a successor. To show his thanks to those who
supported him, he created a small cookie with a small thank-you note inside.
The idea caught on and the next year went on display at the San Francisco
World's Fair in 1915.

An alternate and less controversial theory is that Makoto had a local Japanese
bakery make the cookies for visitors to his tea garden.

The 49er Folk Theory

 3. The 49er theory also originates in northern California. In the mid-1800s,
many Chinese immigrants worked to build the country's railways in Nevada
and Canada. They wanted to celebrate the Moon Festival, a holiday where it
is customary to give special cakes with messages inside. Seeing as they had
only biscuits, they improvised and created the fortune cookie.

The New York Times Theory

4. In 2008, the New York Times published an article that suggested the fortune
cookie originated in Japan -- not China or the United States. The article quotes
researcher Yasuko Nakamachi, who said she had found evidence of Japanese
bakers making fortune cookies as early as 1878. She said she also found
references to the cookies in Japanese literature.

The Modern Fortune Cookie

5. Wherever the fortune cookie originated, it has taken on a life of its own in the
United States. They became popular in California restaurants in the 1940s
and 1950s, and spread rapidly.

Read more: The History of Fortune Cookie | eHow.com

http://www.ehow.com/about_5369487_history-fortune-cookie.html#ixzz11MVxYFQ7

http://www.fancyfortunecookies.com/Articles.asp?ID=148

Fortune Cookie History

The Mysterious Origin of the Fortune Cookie
Much to most American’s surprise, the fortune cookie is not a Chinese invention.
Fortune Cookies Actually Originated in California!

It is actually an American invention originating in California. There are many

theories, and much speculation surrounding the mysterious origin of the fortune
cookie. As to in which city the fortune cookie originated and as to who invented it,
Chinese-American, Japanese-American or 14th century revolutionists, there has
been much debate. In 1983, there was even a mock trial held in San Francisco's
pseudo-legal Court of Historical Review to determine the origins of the fortune
cookie.

Legendary History of the Fortune Cookie #1

The Chinese immigrant, David Jung, founded the Hong Kong Noodle Company while living in
Los Angeles, invented the cookie in 1918. Concerned about the poor he saw wandering near his
shop, he created the cookie and passed them out free on the streets. Each cookie contained a strip
of paper with an inspirational Bible scripture on it, written for Jung by a Presbyterian minister.

Legendary History of the Fortune Cookie #2

Some claim a Japanese immigrant, Makoto Hagiwara, invented the fortune cookie in San
Francisco. Hagiwara designer of the famous Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park was an
avid gardener until an anti-Japanese mayor fired him from his job around the turn of the century.
Later a new mayor did reinstate him. In 1914, to show his deep appreciation to friends who had
stood by him during his time of hardship, Hagiwara made a cookie and placed a thank you note
inside. After passing them out to those who had helped him, he began serving them regularly at
the Japanese Tea Garden. In 1915, they were displayed at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, San
Francisco's world fair.

Legendary History of the Fortune Cookie #3

The Original Idea

In the early 1900’s a plan was hatched to transform San Francisco’s Chinatown from
a ghetto into a cute tourist attraction. San Francisco’s Chinatown promised tourist a
real Oriental experience. The city promoted Chinese decorations, pageantry and
architecture. Supposedly, increased tourism led to the invention of the fortune
cookie to fill the void of a dessert item. To fill the tourists demands for a dessert, a
worker in San Francisco’s Kay Heong Noodle Factory invented a plain flat cookie in
the 1930s. This plain flat cookie, while still warm, was folded around a little piece of
paper on which a hand-written prediction or piece of Chinese wisdom would be
found.

Legendary History of the Fortune Cookie #4

During the 13th and 14th centuries, China was occupied by Mongols. The story goes that the
Mongols had no taste for Lotus Nut Paste. So, the Chinese people hid sayings inscribed with the
date of their revolution inside the Moon Cakes where the yolk would typically reside. Under the
disguise of a Taoist priest, patriotic revolutionary Chu Yuan Chang, entered occupied walled
cities to hand out Moon Cakes to other revolutionaries. These instructions coordinated the
uprising that successfully allowed the Chinese people to form the basis of the Ming Dynasty.
Moon Festival became regularly celebrated. Part of that tradition was the passing out of cakes
with sayings inside them.
It is thought that this legend is what inspired the Chinese 49'ers working on the construction of
American Railways through the Sierra Nevada to California. When Moon Festival rolled around,
they did not have any traditional moon cakes. So out of necessity they improvised with hard
biscuits and the Fortune Cookie was born

Today’s Fortune Cookie

Fortune Cookies In Fun Colors & Flavors Make a Unique... And Tasty Treat!

Fortune cookies became common in Chinese restaurants after World War II. While
not traditionally part of Chinese cuisine, American customers expected desserts. So
out of necessity the fortune cookies thus offered Americans something familiar with
an exotic flair while still being economical for the Chinese vendors.

Although there have been a few cases reported of individuals actually liking the texture and
flavor of fortune cookies, most consider the fortune to be the essence of the cookie. Early
fortunes featured Biblical sayings, or aphorisms from Confucius, Aesop, or Ben Franklin. Later,
fortunes included recommended lottery numbers, smiley faces, jokes, and sage, if hackneyed,
advice. Politicians have used them in campaigns, and fortunes have been customized for
weddings and birthday parties.
In 1988, Mike Fry invented the concept of fortune cookies in fun flavors and colors and founded
Fancy Fortune Cookies®. The first gourmet fortune cookie bakery specializing in custom
sayings as well as great tasting fortune cookies! Fancy Fortune Cookies now provides fortune
cookies in a variety of flavors, colors, and with many options such as, milk chocolate dipped,
dark chocolate dipped, white chocolate dipped, with custom sayings, and full color imprinted
fortunes.
Most recently they have become a volatile marketing and direct mail tool used by fortune 500
companies such as, Motorola, FedEx, Apple, Starbucks, MAC, Victoria’s Secret, Johnson &
Johnson, Guess, Ashley Furniture, Sony, Honda, Lilly, Pfizer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Bank of
America, GM, AT&T, and many more.
http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/fortunecookie.html

If you’ve ever been to a Chinese restaurant, you’ve most likely received a fortune cookie at the
end of your meal. You’ve also probably wondered how they managed to get that tiny slip of
paper into a hard, closed cookie.
Should you not have seen a fortune cookie, let me describe one for you. They are small, hard
golden cookies that can fit into the palm of your hand. But there’s one thing that makes them
unique: they’re folded into a butterfly shape to create a pocket holding a ½” x 2” paper
“fortune.”
Fortune cookies often come at the end of a meal in a Chinese, and sometimes Japanese,
restaurant. Traditionally, the fortunes were Confucian phrases about life (Confucius was a
famous Chinese philosopher from the 6th century BC—over 2500 years ago!). Nowadays, the
fortunes inside the cookies contain just about everything from quotes to advice. Some companies
even let you write your own fortunes! Often, they are written in both English and Chinese, and
may have lottery numbers and smiley faces on them.
Before we get to how fortune cookies are made, let’s try to find out where they originated. The
history of fortune cookies is a little murky. Some think that modern-day fortune cookies were
inspired by 14th century Chinese rebels against Mongol invaders. Legend says that a Taoist
priest and his followers sent messages hidden inside of traditional Chinese moon cakes (Chinese
pastries stuffed with lotus seed paste) to inform rebels about potential uprisings against the
invaders. Others believe that the fortune cookies have Japanese roots in traditional tsujiura
senbei (rice cakes with paper fortunes stuffed inside), made at the Hyotanyama Inari shrine in the
19th century. Another group of fortune cookie enthusiasts thinks that the idea started around the
same time, but in this instance by Chinese railroad workers in America who would hand out
cakes stuffed with holiday wishes.
The invention of fortune cookies as we know them today is just as difficult to pin down. Most
people nowadays believe that fortune cookies were created by a Japanese man named Makoto
Hagiwara in 1914 in San Francisco. Hagiwara owned what is now called the Golden Gate Park
Japanese Tea Garden, where he served tea and fortune cookies. However, many still hold to the
popular belief that fortune cookies were invented by a Chinese-American named David (Tsung)
Jung, who owned the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles. He claimed to have stuffed
the cookies with passages from the Bible and handed them out to unemployed men near his
bakery in 1918. In 1983, the debate between the two confectioners came to a head in the Court of
Historical Review in San Francisco when their dispute was decided by Judge Daniel M.
Hanlon, in favor of Hagiwara.
So, just how did these two gentlemen manage to get fortunes inside their cookies? Well, the
process is actually very simple, and relies on the basic chemistry of a common ingredient—
sugar. The batter for fortune cookies is usually composed of sugar, flour, water and eggs. When
warm, the dough is flexible and can be molded into many shapes. When the baked dough cools
though, the sugar hardens into a crispy, shiny cookie. Originally, bakers would mix the dough,
pour it out into 3” circles, bake them, quickly place a fortune in the middle and use chopsticks to
fold them into the familiar shape before they cooled.
In 1974 fortune cookie manufacturing changed forever. Edward Louie, the owner of the Lotus
Fortune Cookie Company in San Francisco, invented a machine that could insert the fortune and
fold the cookie. In 1980 Yong Lee created the first fully automated fortune cookie machine,
called the Fortune III. Modern machines follow the same steps of handmade fortune cookies:
they mix ingredients, pour batter into 3” cups which are then covered with metal plates to keep
the batter flat and bake for about 3 ½ minutes. Vacuums then suck fortunes into place, use metal
fingers to fold the fortune in half to trap the fortune inside, bend the cookie into shape, and cool
and package the final cookie. Now fortune cookie machines like the Kitamura FCM-8006W can
make up to 8,000 cookies in an hour!
Fortune cookies are a prominent part of Asian-American cuisine and have filtered into popular
culture as well. People create customized fortune cookies to send funny messages to friends and
family—and sometimes to even propose marriage to a loved one! They are even used in
advertising campaigns for corporations. Even though popular belief says otherwise, modern
fortune cookies are as American as baseball and apple pie.