FactSentinel

Despite their ubiquitous presence in Chinese restaurants across America, fortune cookies did not originate in China. Historical evidence points to their creation in California in the early 1900s, most likely by Japanese immigrants. The strongest evidence suggests that Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant who designed the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, began serving these cookies there around 1914. Similar claims exist for Los Angeles-based confectioner Seiichi Kito, but multiple sources including a 1983 mock trial conducted by San Francisco's Court of Historical Review ruled in favor of San Francisco's claim to the fortune cookie's invention.

The confusion about fortune cookies being Chinese stems from their association with Chinese-American restaurants, where they became standard after World War II. During the war, many Japanese-Americans, including bakery owners who made these cookies, were sent to internment camps. Chinese-owned bakeries filled the void and adopted the fortune cookie tradition. The cookies then spread nationwide as Chinese restaurants proliferated in the post-war decades, cementing the false association in American popular culture.

Interestingly, fortune cookies remain virtually unknown in China itself. When they have been introduced there, they are often marketed as "genuine American fortune cookies," acknowledging their true cultural origin as a Japanese-American innovation that became associated with Chinese-American cuisine through historical circumstance rather than authentic Chinese culinary tradition.