Fortune cookies, commonly served after meals at Chinese restaurants in the U.S., are characterized by a fortune, which is written on a small piece of paper tucked inside the cookie. There are several stories about the origin of the fortune cookie. None of them, however, has been proven to be entirely true.
One of these stories the cookie’s origin back to 13 th - and 14th -century China, which was then occupied by the Mongols. According to the legend, notes of plans for a revolution to overthrow the Mongols were hidden in mooncakes that would ordinarily have been stuffed with sweet bean paste. The revolution turned out to be and eventually led to the formation of the Ming Dynasty. This story may sound highly credible, but there seems to be no solid evidence that it inspired the creation of the we know of today as fortune cookies.
Another claims that David Jung, a Chinese immigrant living in Los Angeles, created the fortune cookie in 1918. Concerned about the poor people he saw wandering near his shop, he made cookies and passed them out free on the streets. Each cookie a strip of paper inside with an inspirational Bible quotation on it.
However, the more generally accepted story is that the fortune cookie first in either 1907 or 1914 in San Francisco, created by a Japanese immigrant, Makoto Hagiwara. The fortune cookie was based on a Japanese snack, but Hagiwara sweetened the recipe to appeal to American . He enclosed thankyou notes in the cookies and served them to his guests with tea. Within a few years, Chinese restaurant owners in San Francisco had copied the recipe and the thank-you notes with fortune notes. Such fortune cookies became common in Chinese restaurants in the U.S. after World War II.
