Okamura continued making fortune cookies until World War II, when Japanese-Americans residing in California were forced to relocate to internment camps. Fortune cookies are a regional delicacy in Japan and are made with special molds that can be customized with initials, logos, or designs. One story credits Suyeichi Okamura, a Japanese immigrant who supplied fortune cookies to a San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden in 1906.

So, if fortune cookies are not Chinese – what are their origins? As a matter of fact, they have a Japanese origin by way of California! There are several claims to who the originator of the fortune cookie was. We would have such food at tea time.” Lexington Leader (Lexington, Kentucky), 18 April 1966, page 25 One would not find at the end of a meal something similar to your cake or pie. Our desserts were mostly fruit but not pineapple or kumquats. “I think fortune cookies were invented by a very smart American… Until I came here, I had never seen a fortune cookie. Cookbook author Irene Kuo, who in the 1960s and 1970s was instrumental in promoting Chinese food in the United States, is interviewed in this 1966 newspaper article saying of the famous cookie’s origins: Oregonian (Portland, Oregon), 5 August 1961, page 1Īlong with some other not so “traditional” Chinese foods, fortune cookies are not Chinese. So associated with the Chinese restaurant experience that they are even the object of jokes, fortune cookies have an interesting history – some of which you can find in the newspapers. These bite-sized conclusions to a Chinese dinner are known for their wise (or not so wise) words to diners. Gena is a genealogist and author of the book “ From the Family Kitchen.”įortune cookies are as American as… well, apple pie. She includes some fortune cookie recipes. We won’t explain the entire history of the fortune cookie here, but the IHT article is definitely worth a read.Introduction : In this article, Gena Philibert-Ortega searches old newspapers to learn about the origin of Chinese fortune cookies – discovering that they are not Chinese at all, but an American innovation based on Japanese traditions. The Umeya bakery distributed fortune cookies to well over 100 such restaurants in southern and central California. But during the 1920s and 1930s, many Japanese immigrants in California owned chop suey restaurants, which served Americanized Chinese cuisine. …Nakamachi is still unsure how exactly fortune cookies made the jump to Chinese restaurants. Visitors to the garden were served fortune cookies made by a San Francisco bakery, Benkyodo.

Among them are the descendants of Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant who oversaw the Japanese Tea Garden built in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in the 1890s. A number of immigrant families in California, mostly Japanese, have laid claim to introducing or popularizing the fortune cookie. Prior to World War II, the history is murky. roots to between 1907-1914, or even earlier: In the book, the apprentice is making tsujiura senbei, or “fortune crackers.” So, these “crackers” appeared in Japan almost 30 years before Japanese and Chinese immigrants in California claimed to have invented them. Yasuko Nakamachi, a dedicated student researching at Japan’s National Diet Library, has found compelling evidence that traces the cookie’s origins to Japan, including an 1878 book ( Moshiogusa Kinsei Kidan) about an apprentice in a senbei store (essentially, a bakery). The fortune cookie isn’t actually Chinese.Īccording to an article by the International Herald Tribune, the fortune cookie comes (“almost certainly”) from Japan. These tasty treats have completed Chinese-food meals in America and around the world for decades. I’m talking about the infamous fortune cookie. And better than dessert? Dessert with a side of destiny. What’s better than a great meal? Dessert.

Fortune cookie origin