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One of the best parts of eating to aAmerican Chinese restaurant (Whereextract of a) comes to the end when everyone catches a fortune biscuit. Cracking Open that Golden, Crossy Treat and Reading your forecasts aloud has become a tradition nowadays, you can even learn a mandarin word or two of your fortune, and you can also play lucky numbers it contains at the lottery. But have you ever stopped asking where you really come from Chinese fortune cookies?

Well, the time to learn is now, then read to discover the fascinating history of origin of the Chinese cookies of fortune. (Spoil alert:They are not from China.)

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Three different men claim to haveinvented the cookie of Chinese fortuneAnd they all lived in California at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Japanese immigrant Makoto Hagiwara, the owner of theJapanese tea garden In San Francisco, said he had first served theModern version of the Fortune Cookie In the early 1900s. After an anti-Japanese mayor shot Hagiwara, a new mayor restore him later. It is said that he has shown his gratitude to those who stood by him with hidden thank you notes inside cookies. (The biscuits of the fortune of the Japanese tea garden themselves were made by a bakery of San Francisco called Benkyodo.)

"As my family came from the nobility, they only considered this invention and the introduction of the biscuit of fortune as a pleasant refreshment to enjoy while walking in the garden and taking advantage of oneself", the grandson Hagiwara,Erik Hagiwara-Nagata, explained in a blog 2008. "We did not think about the commercial terms of patents or protections, as is so common in the present day." Later, this lack of patent posed a problem.

Chinese immigrant David Jung, founder of theHong Kong Nodle Company In Los Angeles, made a competing statement that heinvented the cookie of fortune Just before the First World War, while the story happens, Jung has passed the biscuits to poor people for free, to feed them and inspire them. Inside Jung treats, he placed a strip of paper with a biblical writing.

Finally, the Japanese immigrant Seiichi Kito, founder of Fugetsu-do in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo, also claimed to haveinvented the cookie of fortune In the early 1900s. His grandson, Brian Kito, said that there is a 1927 article of a Californian magazine who confirms theFortune Cookie was invented by a Japanese American in Los Angeles. The plot is Corsican!

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The San Francisco Historical Examination Court attempted to resolve the dispute over the fortune of cookies in 1983. During the trial, the evidence included a series of round black iron grils that "were initially used by the Higiwara family to cook the Cookies of Fortune "according toThe times of Los Angeles. A federal judge determined that the cookie is from Higiwara, but many Angelenos are still disagreement.

Regardless of the cookies of the fortune of the city of California, it was not necessary before being everywhere in America. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Chinese cuisine developed in the popularity of all the United States, and cookies came for the ride.

But in an interesting way, the true inspiration of fortune cookies does not come from China at all. Their story begins in another Asian country entirely.

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Some people mistakenly think that the cakes of the moon, which are a Chinese New Year's tradition, are part of the inspiration of the Cookie of Fortune. These cakes contain secret messages as part of a resistance movement against the Mongolian forces in the 14th century. But today's moon cakes are less sent.

In reality, the origins of fortune cookies are in Japan. OldNew York Times Reporter Jennifer 8. Lee explored the history of the Cookie of Fortune in his bookThe Chronicles of Fortune Cookie.

In his research, Lee spoke with the scholar food Yasuko Nakamachi, who spent years traveling in Japan forTrace the story of the biscuit of fortune to his homeland. Nakamachi has identified crackers sold in bakeries on the outskirts of Kyoto, Japan as a likely inspiration for the cookies of Western fortune. In Japan, these cracks are called Tsujiura Senbei (Fortune Crackers) or Omikuji Senbei (written fortune crackers).

The Japanese Senbei contain lines of poetry rather than fortunes and are much larger than the cookies of fortune served in American Chinese restaurants. They are scented with Sesame and miso instead of vanilla, and they are darker than the cookies of American fortune. Another major difference is that their messages are placed in the external curvature of cookies, instead of being folded inside.

Benkyodo, who initially did the cookies of the Fortune of the Japanese garden of Tea Garden, was the main supplier of Fortune biscuits in the United States until the Second World War, when Japanese Americans were sent to camps. internment. As a result, Suyeichi Okamura, owner of Benkyodo, was forced to close his business.

Gary Ono, Okamura's grandson, still has ancient hand stoves that his grandfather is used to shaping some of thePreviously the cookies of American fortune.

While many Japanese bakers were interned, the Chinese started producing their own fortune cookies, still ceiting the association between the stay after dinner.dessert Treat and China continues today. "Although Japanese confectioners were starting to produce fortune cookies again after being released from the internment camps, they finally succumbed to the contest of fortune biscuits now widespread"Ono explained in a blog 2007.

The production of Fortune Cookie was not an easy task. Confiring cookies the cookies of fortune, quickly place the fortune in the middle and use chopsticks to bend them in their iconic form before cooling.

But in the late 1960s, the fortune biscuit industry has changed forever. Edward Louie, owner of the Lotus Fortune biscuits company in San Francisco, has invented a machine that could insert fortune and fold the cookie. As a result, Lotus Fortune Cookie Company could make 90,000 cookies a day. "Nobody can resist the reading of their fortune, no matter the hike,"Louie told theChicago Tribune in 1990.

Today, most cookies of fortune in the United States are manufactured byWonton Food, Inc., which has factories in Brooklyn, New York; La Vergne, Tennessee; and Houston, Texas. Every day, the food of Wonton hangs a thumbFour million fortune cookies.

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For most of its history, the fortunes of Wonton Food themselves were written by Donald Lau. "I was chosen because my english was the best of the group, not because I'm a poet"LauThe New Yorker In 2005, "I would be on the metro and I would have admired the panels and think:" Hey, it would make a great fortune. "... I would keep a notebook and a note of Noille all that came to me."LauTIME magazine That his fortunes had been inspired by everything, popular advice on happiness in the presidential election.

At one point, LAU wrote two or three fortunes a day. But when he retired in 2017, he wrote some fortunes a month. "When they eat their fortune biscuit, I want customers to open fortune, read it, maybe laugh, and let the restaurant happy," said LauTime. "So that they come back next week."

Despite their popularity in Western countries, fortune cookies will not be something you will find in China. WhileA 2008 TED conversationLee showed a video once she brought the fortune cookies with her during a visit to China.

The inhabitants weremystified by the cookies of fortune, especially when they bite them and have found a piece of paper inside. And when Buzzfeed had People in Beijing tried "Chinese" fortune cookies, Most of them said they have tasted like egg rollers. But in the United States, at least, their popularity does not seem to be doing at any time.

And when you do not get to take away, check these 52 hacks of changing cooking of life that will be happy to cook again .