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Fortune Cookies – A custom among every meal of fine Chinese cuisine, right? Not at all! In fact the Chinese cookie was invented not in the bustling streets of Beijing or Wuhan, no no no my friend. The fortune cookie was a product of none other than San Francisco in the early 20th century. This of course couldn’t have been a true American invention without some Judge Judy action, as caused by a small shop owner in Los Angeles that took the self-proclaimed San Franciscan creator to court over the rightful claim to title of fortune cookie inventor. It is said that a fortune cookie was introduced as evidence in court, and the fortune inside read “S.F. Judge who rules for L.A. Not Very Smart Cookie”. The case was settled in favor of San Francisco, ending the age old question of the legitimate fortune cookie inventor.

We now know, thanks to the wonderful judicial system of California, that fortune cookies were invented in San Francisco. But who was this mysterious creator? He was none other than a Japanese immigrant, Makoto Hagiwara, owner of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. So not only was the fortune cookie not a Chinese invention, but its true creator was really an American Japanese immigrant. Hagiwara took the idea from a Japanese dessert cookie and sweetened the recipe to appeal to American tastes. He would include a note on the inside of every cookie thanking his customers for visiting and would serve them with every cup of tea ordered.

Apparently word of the Chinese’ own creation hadn’t quite made its way across the Pacific in time, as humorously illustrated in The Joy Luck Club, a 1989 novel by Amy Tan in which two Chinese immigrant women take jobs at a fortune cookie factory in America. Amused by the very unfamiliar concept behind the cookies, the book outlines their comical attempts at decoding the fortunes inside the cookies they were put to work making, only to come to the verdict that the fortunes contain not wisdom, but “bad instruction.”

So the fortune cookie may not have origins in Asia at all, but who says they don’t have a bit of Chinese good luck inside those sweet little sugar, flour, milk, butter, and vanilla morsels. There were 110 people in 2005 who would tell you so. These people set the world record for the largest 2nd place tie for a Powerball drawing, initially assumed by Powerball officials to be fraud. Upon further investigation, the claims turned out to be true, as those 110 people had taken their Powerball numbers from fortune cookies. Who says those vague little predictions can’t come true?