Fortune Cookie Quest

Following in the footsteps of my daughter, I hopped from stone-to-stone, ensuring not to step on any cracks in the rocky pathway.  We played under Redwood trees at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.  How in the world did we end up there?  Well, we were on a quest.  A quest to learn about the origins of the unwarranted outcast of baking…..  The fortune Cookie.

A while back, we ordered asian food from one of our favorite delivery places in Charleston.  As I took the food containers out of the bags, there were two sad little fortune cookies that fell onto the counter.  My youngest daughter asked me to read her fortune, and in lieu of reading lotto numbers and a silly proverb, I cracked open the cookie and made up a fortune that suited her a little better.  I have always thought that opening a fortune cookie provides a little opportunity to encourage a child in a fun way.  Anyways, after “reading” her fortune, I got to thinking, what’s the deal with these little cookies, anyways?  Where did they originate and how did they become so popular?

Well, we did a little research and packed our bags for California….

It turns out that while fortune cookies are most popular in Chinese restaurants, they actually originated in Japan.  In 1906, an immigrant from Japan named Suyeichi Okamura opened a Japanese bakery in San Francisco.  Suyeichi’s bakery, Benkyodo supplied fortune cookies to Makoto Hagiwara, the director of the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park.  Over time, with so many visitors to the park, the fortune cookie’s popularity began to soar.  So of course, one of the most important places we visited on our quest for fortune cookie knowledge was San Francisco’s beautiful Japanese Tea Garden.

Next, we visited a local fortune cookie bakery called “The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory.”  Here, we learned about the techniques of folding fortune cookies, and sampled flavor variations such as chocolate, green tea and strawberry fortune cookies.  Goodness gracious, these cookies are so underrated!  We left with about a hundred cookies, including one fortune cookie that was the size of my daughter’s head.

Skilled with a newfound folding technique and a ton of inspiration, we decided to bake fortune cookies of our very own once we returned home.  The folding technique we observed at The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory took a little bit of practice, but once we got the hang of it, the cookies looked and tasted great!

In the end, this was one of the most fun baking projects we have ever completed.  If you have the opportunity to learn about the history of certain foods, go for it.  It is amazing where your curiosity can lead you.  In the end, we all had an unforgettable trip, and memories to last a lifetime.

We love this little recipe, and hope you enjoy making customized fortune cookies with the kids in your life!

*Please send us your favorite foodie travel story, and we will post highlights on the blog!

 

 

Yum