"Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies"

Really? I really don't think that is the case.

The quote should say, "Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies...in bed"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/dining/16fort.html

Japanese invention?

You might want to present Alfredo Sauce to Italians. That's another American invention.

Fortune cookies were a Japanese thing--possibly Japanese American--until WWII, when the placement of Japanese Americans in Camps opened the niche to
American Chinese.

You mean, "Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies...except in bed"

And the article was pretty informative. Whodda thunk fortune cookies were from Japan? I'd always thought some dude in California just had too much time on his hands.

Ha ha ha indeed funny "pieces of paper in their cookies"...

Confucius say, 'Man who lives in glass house should change clothes in basement.'
I wonder how countries of origin interpret our take on their cuisines-- like general all-encompassing "Chinese food" or the misplaced association with sushi and raw fish.
I would love to try the Taiwanese take on the hamburger or a Laotian ruben sandwich.

NIRO5 FTW!

Although the fortune cookie as we know it was invented in the early 20th Century by a Japanese-American working in a Chinese restaurant in the Chinatown part of an American city (San Francisco?), it may have precedent in an old Chinese folk tale that I read many years ago.

Forgive me if I do not remember the source of this, or many of the details.

A young man was trying to get a government job by taking a civil service exam, but consistently got failing marks no matter what he did. What little money he had was almost gone, yet he gave his last coins to a beggar. The beggar repaid him by giving him three numbered folded paper envelopes with the instructions to open only one of them at a time, when he is in dire need of help.

The young man thanked the beggar, then opened the first envelope. Inside was a slip of paper telling him to go to a certain tavern. He went there, and recognized an exam official drinking with a friend. Hiding near them, he overheard the official say how he arbitrarily grades the exams, and how his system works (paper on top of the stack gets a passing mark; the others all fail). The young man took the exam one more time, made sure his paper was the last one in --- and passed!

He got the job he wanted, and began to do well. I know that a second crisis occurred --- maybe he was an orphan and needed to find a wife on his own (as his parents could not select one for him). Of course the second envelope told him what to do.

Many years later, as an old man with many grandchildren, he one day fell ill. The doctors could do nothing. So he opened the third envelope, and the note inside said, "Make your will."

Smart "cookies"!

But that has nothing to do with cookies.

I call coincidence!

My brother & I had a Tiawanese couple babysit for us when were kids every time my parents went overseas on vacation. The first time we were asked what we wanted to eat and we insisted on egg rolls.

They had never heard of egg rolls. We tried to explain it to them without a lot of success. Clearly an american invention, she used egg white to make a crepe-type wrap with stir fry inside.

It was unlike anything we had seen before but was still quite tasty.

I remember watching one American reality TV show with the head guy of Virgin Galactic/Airlines. He asked them to come up with new ideas for their flights to China and one group went around China looking for fortune cookies. It was so embarrassing that none of the people in the group on the show didn't know that they are a North American thing.

@Versh (#4)

The Chinese people I know think most "Chinese" cuisine in Europe is terrible and that we choose really weird dishes.

For example, in the UK and much of Europe, "sweet and sour pork/chicken/prawns" is one of the most popular dishes; any takeaway or resteraunt will serve it. I've been told that the dish as we eat it basically doesn't exist in most of China. Although they do use sweet and sour sauces, they're very different from the ones here and used in a different way.

I've been to dinner at a few Chinese people's houses here and a couple of resteraunts in Beijing. The food there is recognisable but still very different from the western-adapted Chinese foods I've paid for in the UK.

Also -- and please forgive me -- I ate a McDonalds meal when I was in Beijing. I can't put my finger on exactly what was different, but it was by far the best tasting McDonalds burger I've ever eaten. The "western" outlets in China definately adapt their recipes to the local tastes.

@#(/Bugs: I've actually been told that the Western food available in China is really shitty, and this leads to a belief among Chinese individuals that Western food in general is shitty. I haven't experienced it myself, though.

Jennifer 8. Lee, who writes for the NY Times, did a wonderful book on this subject called the Fortune Cookie Chronicles.

http://www.fortunecookiechronicles.com/

Highly recommended reading! (She even develops a Tim Wu-inspired theory about open source and Chinese food!)

Its the same with "authentic Indian" cuisine. I can't seem to find chilled monkey brain anywhere!

What I can't get is the Western love affair with fried rice. Fried rice, in my family, is something generally reserved for lunch or an especially hobo dinner. It's a mutt dish, usually made up of leftovers. Tasty and easy enough, yeah, but not something to *aspire* to have.

We certainly wouldn't order it at a restaurant. We wouldn't have it with other dishes either, as fried rice, with its many ingredients, is supposed to be a meal unto itself.

never had a well prepared Yang Chow style fried rice dish?

I bet those fortunes were written in English, thus doubling the befuddlement. There's no 'Aha!' moment when they read the fortune and understand the point of the little treat. From beginning to end, it's all Greek to them.

Yeah something tells me you can't get the artery clogging, heat attack inducing, delicious 3/4+ lb fast food burgers any where else than in America...

That and 700+ calorie milk shakes (well maybe in Europe). Something tells me the rest of the world doesn't share our fascination with milk and fried food.

(And the irony is I'm sitting here eating my 1/2 lb left over hamburger from Outback...)

@4
You should also try Vietnamese baguette sandwiches

I like fried rice (Yangzhou and Fujian), and I'm Cantonese. I also like sweet and sour pork. They serve these dishes in HK as well. Chinese provinces (and Taiwan) have very different cuisine, and even I haven't had them all. I used to think Ginger Beef was something made up by the American, but it turns out to be based on a northern Chinese dish.

If you can read Chinese and looking for recipes of authentic Chinese food, go to

http://www.mitbbs.com/bbsdoc/food.html

MITBBS is a web forum by Chinese students in USA.

@10 Trimeta, My parents think that living on western style dishes means having hamburgers and fries every single meal, undoubtedly based on their distaste of McDonalds.

Truly good Chinese cuisine is one of the better things in this world. I am fortunate to have experienced parts of it. It is a real pity that so many North Americans still go through their whole lives having some pale imitation just because there is not one decent restaurant in their town and the local store don't stock key ingredients. It's
still evolving too

@Versh (#9)

Was it the MSG they slipped in?

Fortune cookies were invented by the Hagiwaras of San Francisco. They also created and ran the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, which was taken from them when they were put in a WWII internment camp.

Chinese food in Japan is really good. Obviously not as good as Chinese food in China must be, but still. In related news, the best Indian food? London.

I used to live in Hong Kong, my experience is that American Chinese food isn't really better or worse, just different, often more heavily sauced for example.

Still, I wish I could get char siu easily in the US, but I've yet to find a place for it.

Obligitary:
http://xkcd.com/425/
http://www.brunching.com/inbedder.html

One wonders how many fortunes of the first variety in bed will emanate from the oppressive fortune cookie factory regimes in bed.

Oops... wrong xkcd link... this is the one:
http://xkcd.com/10/

@grimc
Personally I'd vote for Birmingham over London for Indian food! But I've never been to India so I can't claim best in the world - just my favorite.

The best Indian food in the world is in the guests-only dining room at the Lake Palace in Udaipur.

and where is the best dimsum outside Hong Kong or China?

xcs m bt FRTN CKS r JPNS NVNTN pplrzd n mdrn tms by chchk- lvng -nhppy- wth thmslvs- nd -nbl -t -cntrbt -pstvly- t -thr wn- scty -'mrcns(h dd jst sy tht- slght xggrtd gnrlztn n th nm f strrng dbt)

I've found that you can "Fox News" any headline by adding "because of terrorists" or "because of terrorism", subsequently, I've started doing the same or similar with my fortune cookies. That'll really make you wonder how much big brother is watching.

I shall take this knowledge and go forth to do great good...and evil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHTQ_LmvU_A&feature=related

I blame American ignorance of delicious real Chinese food on the owners of Chinese restaurants who hide delicious things (like pea shoots and snails!) on the Chinese only menu! If the Chinese don't like us calling Sweet and Sour Pork "Chinese" then they should give us the real deal!!!

(also, the Chinese food we were served in the cafeteria of an Indian factory was the worst I'd ever had. this was the "executive meal." I looked longingly at the dal and dosas the factory workers were eating.)

@26

I've only been to London, so you may be right;

@27

Not necessarily disagreeing with you, but within a two-week span I was able to compare London Indian food with that of the Umaid Bhawan Palace (that my quick Google reveals is part of the same chain of your Lake Palace), and I stick by my assertion. :)

@ #9 Bugs, thanks for the info.

Pertaining to McDonalds in foreign countries, I present the the Teriyaki Whopper . Behold and despair!

And shahryarrakeen, Vietnamese baguette sandwiches look amazing.
There is no limit to converting international cuisine into sandwich form.

@ #30 squeevey
Yeah but your terrorism cookies can only be opened when the threat levels are above freesia but below ochre. Terror alert marigold?

Versh - Aargh, that looks awful. I remember mine looking much better, although I was pretty jet-lagged.

I'll second the excellent Indian food in London and Birmingham. I don't know enough about it to judge for authenticity but I have had some amazing meals in both cities.

Takuan (28) - I've heard great things about the Chinatown in San Francisco and Vancouver, which has a huge Chinese population. This is hersay though, I can't vouch for it personally. London's Chinatown is small and, though I love some of its resteaurants, is rated by the Chinese people I know as pretty uninspiring.

*I can never remember how to spell this word so spell it slightly differently every time, in the hope that one day I'll get it by chance. Less efficient than looking it up, but more entertaining.

I knew about the Japanese connection from a talk I attended at 4OSME (the origami conference) about a reconstructed genealogy of fortune cookies. Apparently there is at least one free parameter in making fortune cookies from a circular piece of whatever, namely the length of the resulting "legs". It seems that what Americans know as fortune cookies maximize the internal volume, while the Japanese version maximizes one of the linear dimensions of the final cookie. (I think)

The story about the origins of General Tso's Chicken is also quite interesting:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7639868

@ #8 Clueless:

Egg rolls, at least the deep-fried ones I think you're talking about, are translated as "Spring Rolls" from the Chinese term, so it's entirely possibly that your babysitters knew what "egg rolls" were and how to make them, but were thrown off by the nomenclature. It does explain the crepe-like nature of what you ended up with, since spring rolls usually don't contain egg in them anyway.

@32 Vespabelle:

Do you honestly think most Americans who frequent Chinese restaurants are willing to branch out beyond orange chicken, sweet and sour pork, and beef and broccoli to try strange vegetables or snails? In certain areas of the country, you can find Chinese restaurants that serve only "authentic" food, but in most places, it would be suicidal for business. Look at the spread of chains serving Americanized Chinese food like Panda Express or P.F. Chang.

#42, regarding possible American reluctance to eat authentic Chinese food:

I've got a co-worker who refuses to eat anything but the chicken wings at the local Chinese take buffet. Admitedly a buffet isn't the most "authentic" experience, but at least this one has a dim-sum counter (to go with the chicken wings and sushi). However everything except the chicken wings is apparently too foreign for him.

#11, #17... yeah... egg rolls and fried rice... I don't know about other countries, but here in Venezuela, those two, plus sweet & sour pork ribs, are what most people think of when they think of chinese food. A friend's mother, who is chinese, calls those "the Trilogy of Doom".

I love this story. It seems so obvious, now that it's been pointed out to me, that fortune cookies are Japanese rather than Chinese. They have relatives in Japanese cuisine. Also, come to think of it, the first place I ever found where I could buy fortune cookies in quantity was Nakatsu's Market in Tempe, AZ.

Niro5 @1:

The quote should say, "Americans find high emotional attachment to the slips inside their cookies...in bed"

I've found that you can "Fox News" any headline by adding "because of terrorists" or "because of terrorism"

Versh @7, all societies create mutant versions of other cuisines. I'm told the Dutch make a good herring taco. I've seen with my own eyes a British restaurant that advertised black pudding pizza, and hamburgers topped with Heinz baked beans. I also know a Brooklyn convenience store run by recent Mexican immigrants where you can get unsweetened tamarind popsicles delicately flavored with salt and powdered ancho chile.

NDollak @9, it's a very good story, but are you sure it's Chinese? It's one of the central folktales of the Manager Tribe. You can find it being told by or about managers, CEOS (and widows), SysAdmins, Vladimir Putin, pastors, project managers, coaches, commanding officers, medical practice managers, law school deans, and customer care and billing specialists. I suspect it's also told by Romanian historiographers.

Gloria @17, all Chinese takeout joints serve fried rice because it's a great way to get rid of the leftover bits. They teach westerners to eat it by constantly offering it as an option.

Shahryarrakeen @21, I'm not surprised to hear that the Vietnamese do good things with baguettes. They got a major infusion of French culture.

Takuan @25, I'll never forget a meal I was once served in Idaho Falls: Chop Suey with brown gravy. The family running the restaurant was ethnically Chinese, but they'd been in the area for generations. I expect it had something to do with the absence of Chinese groceries and other Chinese families.

Antinous @27, I'm sorry to hear that. It's a lovely garden.

Igzabier @35: All caps. Failing to read the thread before posting, which would have told you that the point about the Japanese inventing fortune cookies was made and discussed a long way back. Being pointlessly provoking and calling it "stirring debate."

Feel free to try again. Reading the moderation policy should help.

Lhopitalified @42, where I live they certainly would. Our nearest grungy linoleum Chinese takeout place has an entire section of its menu devoted to squid.

NIRO5 FTW seconded, the motion carries, NIRO5 is the WINRAR

More proof that American Chinese food is an entirely different thing from the real deal. I can say, though, I've seen some pretty bizarre Chinese takes on American foods as well. My favorite: the "American-style" pizza shop near where I used to live used to serve canned corn on every pizza, i.e. a plain pizza was sauce, cheese and corn.

I think the Duke Ellington theory of music can be extended to food, as follows: if it tastes good, it is good.

And Mark Twain's criticism of Wagner, too; he said "Wagner's music is better than it sounds." Don't eat things because they're a cultural event, or to prove how broadminded you are, or to prove how macho you are. If you eat anything for those reasons, ur doin it rong.

Eat things because they taste good, or are good for you and you want to learn to like them, or because you think they MIGHT taste good. If not for that last, I'd never have discovered that raspberry sorbet with chocolate sauce is delicious. And I like that yellow flaky yeast on my popcorn.

"If its back faces Heaven, it is edible"

@TNH -

unsweetened tamarind popsicles delicately flavored with salt and powdered ancho chile

Oh my, that sounds insanely delicious. Any idea if these are available anywhere else, or was this a "proprietary recipe" kinda thing?

"If its back faces Heaven, it is edible"

So that's why you eschew the missionary position.

a vile calumny. I invariably employ a rotisserie for god-bothering salesmen.

@45.

Teresa, thanks for messing up my head. ''So there''?

Now I'll mess up yours: Almost any poem by America's greatest poet can be sung to the tune of ''The Yellow Rose of Texas.''

Oh, Buddy66, Teresa knows that! But you may confuse others who (mitakenly) attempt to sing "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" or "Leaves of Grass" or "The Song of Hiawatha" or "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to that tune.

Yeah, I guess she would. Dumb me.

There used to be a guy at San Francisco's Coffee Gallery would sing ''Prufrock'' to an old Hank Williams tune. Boos and cheers and LOL.

I started Two Tramps in Mud Time to the Yellow Rose; but now my larynx is sprained. The first line scans okay, but by the fourth line you're having to stack syllables so tightly that the stuttering gets painful. I challenge any masochist to make it to the end of the first stanza.

Why is there paper inside my cookie? There is English & numbers on one side & the other side says "bird."

Mine says, ''Help! I'm being held prisoner in a Chinese cookie factory!''

"unsweetened tamarind popsicles delicately flavored with salt and powdered ancho chile

Oh my, that sounds insanely delicious. Any idea if these are available anywhere else, or was this a "proprietary recipe" kinda thing?"

If you live anywhere close to someplace with a large Latino population, you should be able to find them. You can buy them in Walmart (and other places, natch) here in Nevada and Arizona. They are tart, but muy delicioso.

http://www.thegrandsichuan.com/?p=48

Americanized Szechuan.

Funny local observation: A strip mall I drive by on the way to work has a Chinese buffet and a Mexican place. If I go by at the right time of day, I'll see a large group of men walking to the strip mall; half of them go to the Mexican place, and the other half to the Chinese buffet.

Along those lines, I once saw a comedian do a routine on that: "Juan, you make egg rolls just like momma used to make!"