Fortune Cookies ?? aka Fortune Cookies ?? who doesn’t know them. Even if only from the movie. They are small crunchy cookies with a message inside. Fortune Cookies are usually served with dessert after dinner in Chinese restaurants. Strangely enough, this is a typical custom in the Western world, especially America. And not as you might expect a Chinese custom. Regardless, most people find Fortune Cookies fun and a bit exciting.
What are Fortune Cookies
Fortune Cookies are crispy cookies that have the shape of a folded half moon and are made of flour, sugar, oil, egg whites, a pinch of salt and possibly some vanilla. When you break open the Fortune Cookie, you will find a small strip of paper with a message inside. This message can be anything, a congratulation but also a warning ?? or prophecy, or a Chinese spell (wisdom) with translation. The message may also be accompanied by a list of numbers, which some interpret as being lucky lottery numbers.
While most of us don’t take the message seriously, there are a few rules “as part of the game”. For example, you shouldn’t eat the biscuit if the forecast doesn’t ?? happy ?? is and should eat with a good prediction. It is also said that the prediction will not come true if you read the message aloud. If you want to do it even more exciting, first eat the whole biscuit and only then read the prediction.
The origin of Fortune Cookies
How did Fortune Cookies come about? There are several versions of this. One thing is certain, it is a typical Western invention. The word “Fortune Cookies” doesn’t even exist in Chinese, even Chinese refer to these biscuits by their English name, because there is no Chinese term for this phenomenon. The Chinese wisdom in the cookies are usually not authentic, but made up by Westerners with a wide imagination. The most commonly heard version about the origin of the Fortune Cookies is that of Makoto Hagiwara.
Makoto Hagiwara was a Japanese-American immigrant responsible for creating and maintaining the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. Hagiwara worked as a landscape architect in the Japanese Tea Garden from 1895 until his death in 1925. In addition, he owned a teahouse in San Francisco.
Hagiwara created a cookie based on a traditional Japanese cracker into which he put a strip of paper with a message. Initially, these messages were so-called “thank you notes”. He had his cookies baked by the Benkyodo Bakery and introduced its creation in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco. The Benkyodo Bakery belonged to the Benkyodo Company, one of the first business companies in Japantown, on San Francisco’s Geary Boulevard, founded by Suyeichi Okamura in 1906.
When the Benkyodo family was interned during WWII, the company was forced to close. After the war the company was reopened and in 1951 Suyeichi’s son, Hirofumi took over the successful company. In 1959 the company moved to Sutter and Buchanan Street in San Francisco, where it is still located today. In 1990, Ricky and Bobby, Hirofumi’s two sons, took over the business from their father. To this day, Benkyodo Bakery is still one of the most famous suppliers of Fortune Cookies.
The birth of the Fortune Cookies machine
After the Second World War, it became a custom in Chinese restaurants in America to serve these cookies after meals, which have now become the name ?? Fortune Cookies ?? had received. In a short time these Fortune Cookies became very popular.
Before the 20th century, the Fortune Cookies were all made by hand using chopsticks. After the invention of the Fortune-Cookies machine that automatically folds the dough and puts the paper message in it, the manufacturing of these Fortune Cookies turned into a mass production. As a result, the price fell dramatically and the biscuits were served in even more Chinese restaurants and thus became even more famous in America and later in other Western countries.
Different versions are also circulating about the origin of the Fortune Cookies machine. Some say it was invented by Shuck Yee from Oakland, California, others claim in 1964 Edward Louie from San Francisco’s Lotus Fortune Cookie Company invented this machine.
Modern Fortune Cookies
Today’s Fortune Cookies are no longer only served after meals in Chinese restaurants. The cookies are used on all kinds of occasions today; Actually little known to us, but all the more so in America. Think of weddings, births, Valentine’s Day and customized promo Fortune Cookies for companies to hand out to visitors at trade fairs or extra beautifully packaged in luxury tins as a gift for their customers. Nowadays there are also so-called Giant Fortune Cookies available for special occasions.
If you Google the internet for a moment, can you get enough inspiration for spells? both serious and very comical ?? in case you want to make these fun Fortune Cookies yourself.