Veda #35 : Fortune Cookies

Day 35
"How did Fortune Cookies get its name?"

Did you ever heard of fortune cookies?. A traditional chinese's snack made from flour, sugar, vanilla, and oil with a small rolled paper wrapped inside, with some quotes written on them. Although there is still some dispute about it's origin, fortune cookies have become an iconic symbol in American culture, inspiring many products. Anyway, how did the "fortune" could get inside a cookies?

The Origin
There is still some unclear definition about the origin of this cookies whether they were made from Chinese traditions or an American actually made it as snacks. Most people nowadays believe that fortune cookies were created by a Japanese man named Makoto Hagiwara in 1914 in San Francisco. Hagiwara owned what is now called the Golden Gate Park Japanese Tea Garden, where he served tea and fortune cookies. However, many still hold to the popular belief that fortune cookies were invented by a Chinese-American named David Jung, who owned the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles. He claimed to have stuffed the cookies with passages from the Bible and handed them out to unemployed men near his bakery in 1918.

But if we track back the inspiration of this cookies, we could go far back in time. Many accounts trace the cookies’ origin back to 13th and 14th century China, which was then occupied by the Mongols. According to legend, secret plans for an uprising were hidden in moon cakes that would ordinarily have contained lotus nut paste, which was unpalatable to the Mongols. The successful uprising, planned with the help of the hidden notes, led to the formation of the Ming Dynasty. This story may be true, and later could become the first inspiration of fortune cookies.

How the Fortune Got Its Name
Actually, this cookies purposes was to encourage peoples. This was called "Fortune", traditionally, the fortunes were Confucian phrases about life. Nowadays, the fortunes inside the cookies contain just about everything from quotes to advice. In order to make this fortune come true, there were many beliefs about this.

Variations on this idea include not eating the cookie if a fortune seems unlucky, or eating the entire cookie as well as the fortune, or the idea that the entire cookie must be eaten before the fortune is read. Conversely, the fortune must be read before any of the cookie is eaten. While some people believe the fortune will not come true if it is read aloud, or read at all, other people follow rules involving how the cookie is selected—including selecting a cookie with closed eyes, passing a cookie to another person at the table, or choosing the cookie that seems to be pointing directly at you.