WRONG! The history of the fortune cookie is not that simple. It has been a debated legend, but most agree its origin is not from China. The fortune cookie is about as Chinese as American apple pie.
Somewhere in China in a dark factory sits an overworked Asian woman perspiring, baking one fortune cookie at a time. She works against the clock as she grabs the cookies out of the 400-degree oven and quickly stuffs a witty saying in the center and folds before it cools and hardens.
The ritual way to end a Chinese meal is believed to have been invented in 1914 in San Francisco. They were introduced by Makoto Hagiwara who transformed a small area of land into what is known today as Golden Gate Park's Japanese Tea Garden.
The fortune cookie, as the legend is told, was brought to the garden to accompany the tea that was served in the tea house, says Erik Sumiharu Hagiwara-Nagata, the great-great-grandson of Makoto.
It is not known exactly how this Japanese tradition became a Chinese-American after-dinner ritual. Hagiwara-Nagata gives the Chinese credit for taking the idea and successfully marketing it and being able to bake them cost efficiently.
San Francisco's claim to the fortune cookie was not recognized until after a court ruling in 1983. Until this ruling the origin had been argued between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Los Angeles claimed it was David Jung who founded the cookie between 1918 and 1919. However, Judge Hanlon, after hearing the evidence, ruled in favor of San Francisco.
The Mee Mee Bakery in Chinatown, one of many fortune cookie makers and distributors, distributes the Shangri-La Brand. Those are the cookies that tourists sitting in the Japanese Garden's tea house are served with tea.
Mee Mee, as well as the other bakeries in the United States, still ship overseas, but fortune cookie production did make its debut in China in 1993. A Brooklyn fortune cookie factory, Wonton Food Co., takes credit for opening the first fortune cookie factory in China. Prior to this time, fortune cookies were shipped in from America.
"There is lots of competition in cookie shops," says Mee Mee's David Chow. "We used to ship all over the States, but not as much anymore."
The production of the fortune cookie was simplified in the 1970's when San Francisco resident, Edward Louie invented a machine for his Lotus cookie factory that would automatically insert the fortune and fold the cookie into its recognized form.
The fortunes that have made the simple-ingredient cookie so popular vary from bakery to bakery, as they are written by the individual bakers.
Little did Confucius know how the fruits of his labor, or rather his words, would develop into such a prosperous business.
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