Explore the birth of fortune cookies
By Yiling Ho

The fortune cookie is as Chinese as chop suey and the flaming
pu-pu platter—which is to say, it’s not Chinese at all. Surely
you're surprised to hear that fortune cookies were born in
America. Where exactly in America is still a matter of debate. The
conventional supposition is that they first appeared in Los Angeles
about 90 years ago. It seems a Cantonese immigrant named David
Jung thought the homeless people near his bakery could use an
uplifting message, not to mention a snack. So he folded scraps of
pithy, positive thinking into cookies and made history.

Not so fast, say San Franciscans. They contend that by 1907,
Makota Hagiwara, a caretaker of the Japanese Tea Garden in that
city around the turn of the century, had created cookies bearing
thank-you notes, which helped him in a dispute with the city's
mayor. Further, they say he displayed his invention at the 1915
Panama Exhibition.

“Whoa!” you say. How does one know so many details about
some miserly, crumbly fortune cookie? Well, when you are as enthusiastic
about Chinese food as I am, the answer to the question above
should be pretty self-explanatory. Now back to the storyboard…

Disputes over such weighty matters usually go unresolved. Not
this one. The question of who holds claim to the legacy of the fortune
cookie actually made it to the Court of Historical Review, a San
Francisco mock court, in 1983. The judge, in a ruling that no doubt
sparked charges that he was a hometown lover, sided with San
Francisco, declaring it the rightful “fortune cookie capital of the
world.”

Less murky are the Chinese roots of the American invention. As
long ago as the 12th century, Chinese monks fighting the Mongols
fueled their rebellion through plans hidden in moon cakes. A true
revolutionary use of dough! But once the modern fortune cookie
made its entrance as a meal closer, it remained remarkably
unchanged for almost 40 years. It wasn’t until around 1960 that the
Lotus Fortune Cookie Company in San Francisco unveiled a
machine that could fold the cookies in half—a lot faster than using
chop sticks—and soon thereafter the industry bowed to American
sensibilities by coming out with the first individually-wrapped,
suitably-sanitized snacks.

But let's face it: Who cares about the cookie? Most people can't
wait to crumble the thing to get at the sliver of wisdom inside. Way
back, the messages were simple proverbs or bits of Scripture. By the
1930s, English variations on abstruse Confucian logic crept in—
cryptic ditties like, “Rotten wood cannot be carved, nor a wall of dung be trowelled.” Some fortune writers took an American slant,
lifting bits from Poor Richard's Almanac.

Today none of that works. Fortune cookie message companies,
such as United Automation Technology in Massachusetts (they are
the company that churns out the slips with the smiley faces) concentrate
on direct, feel-good tidbits. Some humor but nothing too
complex, and above all nothing negative. More to the order of a
daily affirmation, such as “Your sparkling eyes give a healing light
to those you meet.”

“All people want to hear is what lovers tell lovers, not the truth,”
said Gregory Louie of Lotus Fortune Cookie, the son of the man
who invented the cookie-folding machine.

This is not the case in China. There, people still wrestle with messages
such as, “The only way to catch a tiger cub is to go into the tiger's den,” and, “Constant grinding can turn an iron rod into a needle.” Then again, they haven't been doing this all that long. It was only a few years ago that the cookies began showing up in China. They were advertised as “Genuine American Fortune Cookies.” How shocking!

Behold, I present you with a parting gift before you turn your
hungry eyes to the next page: a simple recipe for all those die-hard
fortune cookie lovers out there. May you finally be contented with the amount of “fortune” ye shall consume! Makes great Hall
Meeting snacks too…

Fortune Cookies
1 egg white
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup white sugar
1 pinch salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter two cookie
sheets. Write fortunes on strips of paper about four inches long
and 1/2 inch wide.

2. Mix the egg white and vanilla until foamy but not stiff.
Sift the flour, salt and sugar and blend into the egg white mixture.

3. Place teaspoonfuls of the batter at least four inches
apart on one of the prepared cookie sheets. Tilt the sheet to move
the batter into round shapes about three inches in diameter. Be
careful to make batter as round and even as possible. Do not make
too many, because the cookies have to be really hot to form them
and once they cool it is too late. Start with two or three cookies to
a sheet and see how many you can do.

4. Bake for five minutes or until cookie has turned a
golden color 1/2 inch around the edges. The center will remain
pale. While one sheet is baking, prepare the other.

5. Quickly move baked cookie with a wide spatula and
place upside down on a wooden board. Quickly place the fortune
on the cookie, close to the middle and fold the cookie in half.
Place the folded edge across the rim of a measuring cup and pull
the pointed edges down. Place folded cookies into the cups of a
muffin tin or egg carton to hold their shape until firm.

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