I recently found Jennifer 8. Lee's blog, the Fortune Cookie Chronicles, and am loving it. She happens to be releasing her book (of the same name) in March, and it's about the history and role of Chinese food in America. Obviously, it's about food, but it's also about culture (example from the summary: "unique bond between Chinese food and American Jewry" - yes).
In any case, she recently wrote a piece for the New York Times about the fortune cookie's backstory, which my sister forwarded to me. Check it out - surprisingly, a historian argues the fortune cookie could have stemmed from Japan. And if I've told you about my return to Boston last week (where the annoying know-it-all across from me claimed fortune cookies were from China - more on him later) then this article seems to be in good timing.
For me and for him.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Fortune Cookies and Good Reads
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3 comments:
Wait, where did they come from?
San Francisco.
Or China, according to the man on the plane.
The last paragraph of the NYT article quotes someone who says that it may have been invented in Japan, but it's really Chinese-American in nature. So both, I suppose.
Though if I were on a game show with Hank, I would probably agree with him - SF.
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