Your Fortune Cookie

History of Fortune Cookies

Fortune cookies trace their roots to 19th-century Japan, where a tea-garden snack called tsujiura senbei held fortunes in its folds. Early Japanese immigrants brought this tradition to California in the late 1800s. In San Francisco, Makoto Hagiwara served a sweetened, folded version at the Japanese Tea Garden around 1908. By the 1910s, Chinese-American restaurateurs popularized them as a post-meal treat. Mechanization in the 1960s enabled mass production, making fortune cookies a beloved finale of Chinese-American dining.