# The Japanese Origins of the Fortune Cookie **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 18, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006 "2008-01-18T13:05:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/1 "2008-01-18T13:05:26Z")
A (Japanese) friend sent me a copy of this New York Times article, Fascinating stuff. > [@](#): > > Solving a Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside a Cookie > > Some 3 billion fortune cookies are made each year, almost all in the United States. But the crisp cookies wrapped around enigmatic sayings have spread around the world. They are served in Chinese restaurants in Britain, Mexico, Italy, France and elsewhere. In India, they taste more like butter cookies. A surprisingly high number of winning tickets in Brazil’s national lottery in 2004 were traced to lucky numbers from fortune cookies distributed by a Chinese restaurant chain called Chinatown. > > But there is one place where fortune cookies are conspicuously absent: China. > > Now a researcher in Japan believes she can explain the disconnect, which has long perplexed American tourists in China. Fortune cookies, Yasuko Nakamachi says, are almost certainly originally from Japan. > > Her prime pieces of evidence are the generations-old small family bakeries making obscure fortune cookie-shaped crackers by hand near a temple outside Kyoto. She has also turned up many references to the cookies in Japanese literature and history, including an 1878 image of a man making them in a bakery - decades before the first reports of American fortune cookies. [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/dining/16fort.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/dining/16fort.html) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/2 "2008-01-18T13:18:47Z")
I could have sworn that Cecil had an article on the history of fortune cookies, but perhaps I’m thinking of something else that is common in restaurants here but not its native country… ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/3 "2008-01-18T13:45:07Z")
I searched Cecil’s columns, and all I could find was a query about how they got the fortunes in there: [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010330.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/010330.html) ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/4 "2008-01-18T14:15:24Z")
Yeah, I think it’s something else, but I can’t think what it is. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/5 "2008-01-18T17:38:14Z")
I always heard they were invented in the US by a Japanese American, the Japanese Tea Garden guy. Wikipedia agrees, although suggests an alternate theory that they were invented in LA. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2008, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/6 "2008-01-18T23:44:21Z")
and of course there’s also the possibility of parallel development instead of a single point of origin. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/7 "2008-01-19T00:38:05Z")
I always assumed that, like the vast majority of Chinese cuisine consumed in the US, fortune cookies were a purely American invention. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2008, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-japanese-origins-of-the-fortune-cookie/434006/8 "2008-01-19T00:50:07Z")
In Hawaii, you don’t get fortune cookies with your Chinese meal. Tf you get anything, it’s won ton. We’ve been eating fortune cookies in Hawaii for generations. We call then senbei, made in Japanese style bakeries.