After enjoying a savory meal at Chinese restaurants, we are presented with a crunchy vanilla confection; the fortune cookie. Each cookie includes a little strip of paper inside that offers advice or a fortune. The origin has been long debated between American, Chinese and Japanese populations. Japanese researcher Yasuko Nakamatchi traced through decades of creation stories and came to the conclusion that the fortune cookie is most likely of Japanese origin. There are a handful of family-owned bakeries near a Shinto shrine in Kyoto that have a continued tradition of making a fortune cracker called tsujiura senbei. These cookies are larger and darker than American fortune cookies and are flavored with sesame and miso. The fortune is placed in the fold on the outside of the cookie. In 1906, Suyeichi Okamura started a Japanese confectionery called Benkyodo in San Francisco. He was the sole supplier of fortune cookies to a Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park until World War II. Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps and the confectioneries closed down. Chinese businessmen saw an opportunity and started producing their own fortune cookies. They sold them to Chinese restaurants and the tradition continued after the end of the war. The claim to the cookie’s origin was even brought to the courts for dispute. In 1918, the founder of the Hong Kong Noodle Company in Los Angeles made a claim disputing Benkyodo’s claim that he invented the fortune cookie. The federal judge of the Court of Historical Review determined that the modern fortune cookie was created in pre-World War I San Francisco.
The Limoges Chinese Take Out Box with Fortune Cookie is designed like the oyster pail takeout box, has a crafted Chinese woman in traditional attire clasp and a braided metal handle.
The Limoges Fortune Cookie Box is painted in different shades of brown and designed like a folded cookie. This item includes a paper fortune and a crafted dragon clasp.
The Limoges Gold Fortune Cookie Box with Merry Christmas Note is striking with a gold finish and would make a great Christmas gift!
