- So, hold on.
Japanese machinery made in America,
and we're saying that they're Chinese.
- Yes.
(shattering)
I know some facts about fortune cookies.
- And I know how to make them
- So let's teach each other.
- Perfect! - Cool.
(fanfare)
Wait, wait, can I tell you a story real quick?
- [Woman] Sure!
(rhythmic music)
- [Man] It's 2005, the powerball is at $25 million,
and you're eating takeout for the third night in a row.
You break open a fortune cookie and it reads,
"All the preparation you've done
will finally be paying off."
The lucky numbers are 22, 28, 32, 33, 39, 40.
You play them, because why not?
And you win second place along with 109 other people.
The lottery investigates and learns that
everyone played the lucky numbers from the same fortune.
If only you'd played 42 instead of 40,
you'd have hit the jackpot.
- [Woman] That's crazy.
How did fortune cookies come to the US?
- Well, let's go back to 1983.
(swooping)
San Francisco and Los Angeles are facing off in court.
Sort of.
It's just a mock trial to determine
who invented the fortune cookie.
You see, San Francisco claims that, prior to World War I,
Makoto Hagiwara, a Japanese immigrant and the landscape
designer of the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park,
would serve the cookies to visitors.
Los Angeles argues that David Jung, a Chinese immigrant
and founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company,
invented the cookies which it's been said
were called fortune tea cakes.
The judge chooses San Francisco,
but doesn't weigh in on whether they're Japanese or Chinese.
(swooping)
1981.
Yong Lee, a Korean immigrant, patents the Fortune III,
the world's first fully automated fortune cookie machine.
This is a huge step forward for fortune cookie production,
but it's not the first machine.
Seven years earlier, Edward Louie,
owner of the Lotus Fortune Cookie Company,
invents the first machine that can place
a fortune in the cookie and fold it up.
- [Woman] That's amazing.
- [Man] Mhm.
(shattering)
- So making fortune cookies is actually fairly easy.
The first thing we're gonna do is add egg whites,
and then vanilla.
So you're just gonna whisk it until frothy.
So, next add the flour,
and we're gonna sift that into the bowl.
Sugar.
Yeah, a pinch of salt.
And next we're going to combine it all with a spatula.
And this is kind of similar to making macarons,
like that's about the texture we're gonna get.
Once it's paste-like, we're gonna add a little water,
and I found that it takes about three tablespoons,
but you should add it gradually.
The batter should loosen up a bit,
and fall with ribbons like that.
Look how beautiful.
- [Man] Nice.
- [Woman] So then you have two options.
You can do this with a rimmed cookie cutter
to give you some guidelines,
or just take a tablespoon and eyeball it.
The other important thing to note is
that you can only make two at a time.
Basically that's just because if you make more,
they'll just firm up into cookies,
rather than being able to be folded into fortunes.
- [Man] It's the 1950s.
Babies are booming, Elvis is singing,
and by the end of the decade,
Americans are cracking over 250 million cookies a year.
Chinese restaurants are handing out
fortune cookies all across the country.
(swooping) (bright music)
World War II is over and fortune cookies are going national.
As soldiers return from the Pacific,
they pass through West Coast Chinese restaurants
before heading home,
where they request the relatively unheard of cookies
from very confused restaurant owners.
They oblige, place orders,
and the cookies spread all over the country.
Now, around the same time,
the Office of Price Administration removes
Chinese fortune tea cakes from its control list.
Which means fortune cookies are Chinese, right?
(shattering)
- [Woman] To make a fortune cookie,
we've gotta work pretty quickly.
Take a fortune, fold it over, and then fold it in half.
Voila, pop in the little muffin tin.
- All right, let me try.
I believe in me.
- I believe in you too. - No I don't.
- I believe in you. - I don't believe in me.
- Yes you can! - Okay.
Oh that's hot, whoo!
- Okay quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly.
Yes, yes, yes, look at it!
- I can live with that.
- We've got so many more to go.
- (clapping) Let's do this!
(shattering)
On February 19, 1942,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorizes Executive Order 9066,
which allows for the forcible relocation of
Japanese Americans to internment camps.
This order would not be lifted for three years,
causing many Japanese businesses to close.
Chinese business owners step in
to satisfy the increase demand for Chinese food.
(swooping)
(shattering)
Prior to the war, some Chinese restaurants
are owned by Japanese families.
There's very little demand for
traditional Japanese cuisine at the time,
so to make a living some people open Chinese restaurant.
Some small Japanese influences
are able to work their way in.
(swooping)
(shattering)
1914, Makoto Hagiwara reportedly
introduces the fortune cookie to the US,
though it is called senbei,
which can be translated from Japanese to cracker.
He presents them to the guests at Golden Gate Park
with the help of a local sweet shop,
but the fortune cookie didn't just come from nowhere.
(bright music) (swooping)
(shattering)
Kyoto, home of Tsujiura Senbei,
the possible precursor to the fortune cookie.
It's darker, larger,
and the fortune is tucked into the knuckle,
but the shape is the exact same.
Researchers have found documentation of the cracker
as far back as the early 1800s,
and that's it.
That's where some people think
the fortune cookie comes from.
All right, so we tried to recreate Tsujiura Senbei
and we couldn't because--
- It was impossible to find a recipe.
We searched all over the internet,
we got Taste of Japan involved,
and we just couldn't find a recipe.
But we do know a few things about them.
We know that they have miso and they have sesame.
They're less sweet, they're more on the savory side.
But we really couldn't track down a recipe.
So this is, you know, our interpretation.
- Darn. - I know.
- Next time. - Next time!
- Next time we'll take a trip.
- Great.
- Three. - Two.
- One. (breaking)
Oh God. (gasp)
- You are a queen.
- Everyone is fighting their own battles.
- [Woman] Oh, I like mine better.
- [Man] Yeah yours is better.
(jazzy music)