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 chi ...

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, sugar,

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

, and sesame seed oil 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 pret ...

. The message inside may also include a Chinese 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 o ...

numbers. Fortune cookies are often served as a dessert in Chinese restaurants in the United States, Canada and other countries, but they are not Chinese in origin. The exact origin of fortune cookies is unclear, though various immigrant groups in California 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 ci ...

; and there is a Japanese temple tradition of random fortunes, called omikuji. 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 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 File:もて� ...

. 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 shri ...

shrine in Kyoto. Makoto Hagiwara of

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 develop ...

's Japanese Tea Garden 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 in

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 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 (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 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 opposing ...

, 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 dia ...

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. 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 and Peking Noodle in

. There are other smaller, local manufacturers including Tsue Chong Co. in Seattle, Keefer Court Food in Minneapolis, Sunrise Fortune Cookie in Philadelphia, and Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in San Francisco. 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 flour, sugar,

, and sesame seed oil) 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 ...

'' 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 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 muscular activity. Most animals derive most of their energy from aerobic respiration, namely combining the carb ...

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 '' chifas'', 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 ar ...

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 wo ...

, 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 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