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Something occurred to me recently while standing in a Taichung
bakery. As I sifted through the shelves of breads and sweets,
it suddenly dawned on me - I haven't seen a single fortune
cookie since I arrived in Taiwan.
A small but significant revelation.
Leaving the bakery in a state of confusion, I began sorting
through my experiences with Chinese desserts thus far. Had
I not paid close enough attention to the end of every meal
for the past three months? I wrote home immediately. This
was big news. Either something was wrong with me or something
was very wrong with Taiwan. Ah, my stubborn American mind.
The truth began unraveling the next day when my Taiwanese
co-worker informed me that in his 30 years on the island,
the only place he had ever seen fortune cookies was in movies.
Imagine, a Chinese person who has never seen, touched nor
tasted a real-life fortune cookie.
Unraveling the mystery proved to be anything but easy. Local
bookstore workers insisted that my moon-shaped sketch was
a "shui chiao". After understanding that the fortune
cookie was not a greasy dumpling, they helped me search the
shelves. We rummaged through every Chinese dessert book in
the store - unsuccessfully.
Frustrated, I went online. I scanned every cookie web page
in the world. Databases with thousands of fortunes, freelance
fortune writers, recipes for making massive quantities of
the treat, select flavors to order - plain, chocolate, vanilla
and citrus - with a fat free option, if desired.
Just as I was giving up hope, I made a hit with a website
called "American folklore". One look at the word
"folklore" and I knew my dream of the authentic
cookie was over.
It seems that Seichi Kito, a Japanese-American, is considered
the originator of the cookie. The original cookies contained
Haiku poetry - again, Japanese. Kito sold them to area Chinese
restaurants as a dessert item. His son is now the third owner
of Fugetsudo, a Japanese sweet shop in downtown Los Angeles'
Little Tokyo. Even today, the original fortune cookie molds
still sit in the windows, collecting dust and offering memories.
I had been fooled by the fortune cookie market. Of Chinese-American
icons, fortune cookies always ranked up there with dragons,
Jackie Chan, cheap paper takeout boxes with scribbled red
characters, dimly lit restaurants with paper lamps and sweet
and sour chicken. So much for authenticity.
Fortune cookies, by most standards, are hard, tasteless and
dry. A friend once told me that this creation was the only
mistake the Chinese made in the kitchen. Fortunately, the
cookie's magic is revealed within. The trick is just revealing
it without ripping it in half. That must be bad luck - Chinese
style, of course.
Americans fall for the fortune cookie everyday. There is rarely
a Chinese meal that ends without the tasteless treat. What
they don't know is that every time they devour a little cookie,
they are carrying on a tradition of their own - an American
tradition that is only 100 years old.
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