A fortune cookie is a crisp and sugary

cookie A cookie is a baked or cooked snack or dessert that is typically small, flat and sweet. It usually contains flour, sugar, egg, and some type of oil, fat, or butter. It may include other ingredients such as raisins, oats, chocolate chips, n ...

wafer A wafer is a crisp, often sweet, very thin, flat, light and dry biscuit, often used to decorate ice cream, and also used as a garnish on some sweet dishes. Wafers can also be made into cookies with cream flavoring sandwiched between them. They ...

usually made from

flour Flour is a powder made by grinding raw grains, roots, beans, nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many culture ...

sugar Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...

vanilla Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus ''Vanilla (genus), Vanilla'', primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (''Vanilla planifolia, V. planifolia''). Pollination is required to make the p ...

, and

sesame seed oil Sesame oil is an edible vegetable oil derived from sesame seeds. The oil is one of the earliest-known crop-based oils. Worldwide mass modern production is limited due to the inefficient manual harvesting process required to extract the oil. O ...

with a piece of paper inside, a "fortune", usually an

aphorism An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...

, or a vague

prophecy In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or prete ...

. The message inside may also include a

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

phrase with translation and/or a list of lucky numbers used by some as

lottery A lottery is a form of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize. Some governments outlaw lotteries, while others endorse it to the extent of organizing a national or state lottery. It is common to find some degree of ...

numbers. Fortune cookies are often served as a dessert in

Chinese restaurants in the United States Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

and other countries, but they are not Chinese in origin. The exact origin of fortune cookies is unclear, though various immigrant groups in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

claim to have popularized them in the early 20th century. They most likely originated from cookies made by Japanese immigrants to the United States in the late 19th or early 20th century. The Japanese version did not have the Chinese lucky numbers and was eaten with

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of ''Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and north ...

History

As far back as the 19th century, a cookie very similar in appearance to the modern fortune cookie was made in

Kyoto, Japan Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the city ...

; and there is a Japanese temple tradition of random fortunes, called

omikuji are random fortunes written on strips of paper at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Japan. Literally "sacred lot", these are usually received by making a small offering and randomly choosing one from a box, hoping for the resulting fort ...

. The Japanese version of the cookie differs in several ways: they are a little bit larger; are made of darker dough; and their batter contains sesame and miso rather than vanilla and butter. They contain a fortune; however, the small slip of paper was wedged into the bend of the cookie rather than placed inside the hollow portion. This kind of cookie is called and is still sold in some regions of Japan, especially in

Kanazawa, Ishikawa is the capital Cities of Japan, city of Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 466,029 in 203,271 households, and a population density of 990 persons per km2. The total area of the city was . Overview Cityscape ...

. It is also sold in the neighborhood of

Fushimi Inari-taisha is the head shrine of the ''kami'' Inari, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The shrine sits at the base of a mountain also named Inari which is above sea level, and includes trails up the mountain to many smaller shrines ...

shrine in Kyoto.

Makoto Hagiwara (15 August 1854 – 12 September 1925) was a Japanese-born American landscape designer responsible for the maintenance and expansion of the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California, from 1895 until his death in 1925. H ...

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the development ...

Japanese Tea Garden are traditional gardens whose designs are accompanied by Japanese aesthetics and philosophical ideas, avoid artificial ornamentation, and highlight the natural landscape. Plants and worn, aged materials are generally used by Japanese garden desig ...

in San Francisco is reported to have been the first person in the U.S. to have served the modern version of the cookie when he did so at the tea garden in the 1890s or early 1900s. The fortune cookies were made by a San Francisco bakery, Benkyodo. David Jung, founder of the

Hong Kong Noodle Company Hong Kong Noodle Company is a manufacturer of Chinese noodles, wonton skins, and egg roll wrappers in Los Angeles, United States. It was founded in 1913 by Canton native David Jung, who had immigrated to Los Angeles. Fortune cookies The company c ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, has made a competing claim that he invented the cookie in 1918.. San Francisco's

Court of Historical Review The Court of Historical Review (sometimes called the Court of Historical Review and Appeal) is a mock court in San Francisco, California. It has been convened on irregular intervals over several decades in order to decide questions of historical cu ...

attempted to settle the dispute in 1983. During the proceedings, a fortune cookie was introduced as a piece of evidence with a message reading, "S.F. Judge who rules for L.A. Not Very Smart Cookie". A federal judge of the Court of Historical Review, from San Francisco themselves, determined that the cookie originated with Hagiwara and the court ruled in favor of San Francisco. Subsequently, the city of Los Angeles condemned the decision. Seiichi Kito, the founder of Fugetsu-do of Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, also claims to have invented the cookie. Kito claims to have gotten the idea of putting a message in a cookie from

Omikuji are random fortunes written on strips of paper at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples in Japan. Literally "sacred lot", these are usually received by making a small offering and randomly choosing one from a box, hoping for the resulting fort ...

(fortune slip) which are sold at temples and shrines in Japan. According to his story, he sold his cookies to Chinese restaurants where they were greeted with much enthusiasm in both the

and

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

areas, before spreading. Up to around

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, fortune cookies were known as "fortune tea cakes"—likely reflecting their origins in Japanese tea cakes. Fortune cookies moved from being a confection dominated by Japanese-Americans to one dominated by Chinese-Americans sometime around World War II. One theory for why this occurred is because of the

Japanese American internment Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

during World War II, which forcibly put over 100,000 Japanese-Americans in internment camps, including those who had produced fortune cookies. This gave an opportunity for Chinese manufacturers. Negative fortune cookie

Fortune cookies before the early 20th century were all made by hand. The fortune cookie industry changed dramatically after the fortune cookie machine was invented by Shuck Yee from

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. The machine allowed for mass production of fortune cookies which subsequently allowed the cookies to drop in price to become the novelty and courtesy dessert many Americans are familiar with after their meals at most Chinese restaurants today.

Manufacturers

There are approximately 3 billion fortune cookies made each year globally, the majority of them consumed in the US. The largest manufacturer of the cookies is Wonton Food, Inc., headquartered in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York. They make over 4.5 million fortune cookies per day. Other large manufacturers are Baily International in the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

and Peking Noodle in

. There are other smaller, local manufacturers including Tsue Chong Co. in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Keefer Court Food in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

, Sunrise Fortune Cookie in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

, and Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in

. Many smaller companies will also sell custom fortunes. Manufacturing processes vary, but they generally follow the same procedure. The ingredients (typically made with a base of

, and

) are mixed in a large tank and squirted onto fast moving trays. These function like a conveyor belt and are heated to cook the dough. Cookies are compressed with round hot plates to shape and cook them. The cookies bake for approximately one minute and are reshaped. They can be mechanically shaped or folded by hand. When automated, a machine folds the cookie into the correct orientation with the fortune inside. Cooled and hardened cookies are sealed in plastic wrappers, which are inspected before being shipped. Today, most cookies are produced in the United States with the biggest factory located in Brooklyn.

Marketing

The message inside may include a list of lucky numbers used by some as

numbers; since relatively few distinct messages are printed, in the recorded case where winning numbers happened to be printed, the lottery had an unexpectedly high number of winners sharing a prize. Authorities briefly investigated Wonton Food in 2005, after 110 Powerball lottery players won about $19 million after using the "lucky numbers" on the back of fortunes. Fortune cookies are sometimes used for special marketing promotions. For example, the film ''

Kung Fu Panda 3 ''Kung Fu Panda 3'' is a 2016 computer-animated martial arts comedy film produced by DreamWorks Animation and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the third installment in the ''Kung Fu Panda'' franchise and the sequel to ''Kung Fu Panda 2' ...

'' was promoted by putting quotations from the protagonist of the film on fortune cookie slips. In 1989, fortune cookies were reportedly imported into

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and sold as "genuine American fortune cookies". Wonton Food attempted to expand its fortune cookie business into China in 1992, but gave up after fortune cookies were considered "too American".

Nutrition

Cookies from different manufacturers have different ingredients and nutritional content. One cookie typically contains around of

food energy Food energy is chemical energy that animals (including humans) derive from their food to sustain their metabolism, including their muscle, muscular activity. Most animals derive most of their energy from aerobic respiration, namely combining the ...

and 5–7 g of total carbohydrates. A cookie may have sugar varying from 0–3 g, between 2–8 mg of sodium, and may have significant (compared to their size) amounts of iron or protein. The small size means they have little overall nutritional value.

Around the world

Fortune cookies, while largely an American item, have been served in Chinese restaurants in Brazil, Canada, France, India, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom, as well as other countries. In Peru, they are served in the ''

chifa Chifa is culinary tradition based on Chinese Cantonese elements fused with traditional Peruvian ingredients and traditions. Though originating in Peru, the Chifa tradition has spread to neighboring countries like Ecuador, Chile and Bolivia. Chi ...

s'', Chinese-Peruvian fusion food restaurants. There are also multi-cultural versions of the fortune cookie. For instance, the Mexican version of the fortune cookie, called the "Lucky Taco", is a red taco-shaped cookie with a fortune inside. The same company that makes the Lucky Taco also makes a "Lucky Cannoli", inspired by Italian

cannoli Cannoli (; scn, cannola ) are Italian pastries consisting of tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy filling containing ricotta—a staple of Sicilian cuisine. They range in size from . In mainland Italy, they are ...

Translations of the name

Globally, the cookies are generally called by the English term ''fortune cookies'', being American in origin. There is no single accepted Chinese name for the cookies, with a large variety of translations being used to describe them in the

Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...

, all of which being more-or-less literal translations of the English "fortune cookie". Examples include: 幸运籤饼 ''xìngyùn qiān bǐng'' "good luck

lot Lot or LOT or The Lot or ''similar'' may refer to: Common meanings Areas * Land lot, an area of land * Parking lot, for automobiles *Backlot, in movie production Sets of items *Lot number, in batch production *Lot, a set of goods for sale togethe ...

cookie", 籤语饼 ''qiān yǔ bǐng'' " fortune words cookie", 幸运饼 ''xìngyùn bǐng'' "good luck cookie", 幸运籤语饼 ''xìngyùn qiān yǔ bǐng'' "lucky fortune words cookie", 幸运甜饼 ''xìngyùn tián bǐng'' "good luck sweet cookie", 幸福饼干 ''xìngfú bǐnggān'' "good luck biscuit", or 占卜饼 ''zhānbǔ bǐng'' "divining cookie".

Notes

References

* . * * * .

External links

Cookie Master
– Article detailing the job of a cookie fortunes writer

– An account by Erik S. Nagata, the great, great grandson of Makoto Hagiwara {{Authority control Cookies American Chinese cuisine American inventions Japanese inventions Canadian Chinese cuisine Luck Food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area Superstitions of the United States Japanese-American cuisine