Author Notes

Fortune cookies, while ubiquitous in Chinese restaurants in the United States today, are not part of any traditional Chinese cuisine. They are more likely based on a Japanese savory wafer folded into quarters with a written message tucked in the cracker’s fold. A mid-nineteenth century collection of Japanese stories has an illustration of an apprentice grilling tsujiura senbei wafers in a black iron mold over hot coals. In San Francisco, fortune tea cakes made at the Benkyodo bakery were served at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park in the early 1890s. 

How these Japanese treats jumped to being served at American Chinese restaurants is not entirely clear. “Chop suey” restaurants serving Americanized Chinese cuisine were popular in California during the 1920s and 30s and some were run by Japanese immigrants. Chinese-owned bakeries may have taken over fortune cookie production when Japanese bakeries were shut down during World War II and Japanese-Americans were sent to internment camps. In any event, by the middle of the twentieth century, fortune cookies were a mainstay in Chinese restaurants in the US.⁠1

This story was written for an anthology of stories about a magic fortune cookie house and takes some liberties with the timeline and history of fortune cookies to fit the world Declan and Elliot live in. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it! 

1. Jennifer 8. Lee, The Fortune Cookie's Origin: Solving a Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside a Cookie, New York Times, Jan. 6, 2008, available at https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/travel/16iht-fortune.9260526.html.

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