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Short Stuff: Fortune Cookies · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey you, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and there's Chuck. And this is short stuff about fortune cookies,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: which is jam packed the stuff you didn't know about
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: fortune cookies. You mean the little cookies. It tastes terrible
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: that come from China. Uh part of that's right? Yeah,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: which part the taste terrible part? Yeah? I love a
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: fortune cookie. I've never loved eating them, but I've always
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: liked getting that fortune. I've had one or two fortune
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: cookies where I was like, that was all right. I
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: don't know what the deal was. They were freak fortune cookies,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I guess because there is definitely a rarity, for sure,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's fun. They should sandwich a fortune in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the middle of an oreo. Yeah, why not? Then that'd
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: be down so um. One of the things that I
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: never realized that I never realized. I didn't realize until
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I started researching this, Chuck, is that the fortune is
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: not actually baked into the fortune cookie. Did you know that? Well,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: sure it would catch fire. I didn't never think about that.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I never did. And also it would be like gross
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: from the you know, the batter. A fortune cookie is
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: a little thin wafer cookie and when you start to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: cook it. Initially it's batter still, so that would make
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: the fortune paper pretty mushy. So all right, smart guy,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: how do they put the fortunes in the fortune cookie? Then?
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by you never really thought about it?
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Was you literally never thought about it for one second?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: That's absolutely true. Uh. They bake it for a little
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: while first, and then they stick it in there, right, yeah,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: bake it and stick it bacon stick, and then fold
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: it bake stick. And well you gotta fold first, right,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: you fold afterwards. That's the key. So you bake it
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: as a flat wafer cookie, and then when you pull
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: it out of the oven, it's still pliable, really quick
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: folded into the into that thing with the with the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: fortune inside. All right, Well, we joked earlier. I joked
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: about it coming from China, And you might think that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: they do because you find them traditionally in Chinese restaurants
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: at the end of the meal. But that is probably
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: not so. But we do have a couple of reasons
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: why people might think this, and one of them is
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the fact that this story about moon cakes from China,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: This this food that's kind of associated with the mid
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Autumn festival when they're celebrating uh fall harvest. It's a
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: little pastry. It's got a little sweeter, savory filling. They're
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: usually round because of shape like the moon, but they
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: can be square, and they're baked to a golden brown
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: as far as the Cantonese style go. And they stamp
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: a little uh name when they're cooking this thing after
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: they mold it, so it's got a little stamp on
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: their right, which tells you what's inside. For a lot
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: of times, there's stuff like lotus paste, which is sweet
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: sweet sweet bean paste, which is good red date paste,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: which is originally where the word jujub comes from. And
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: then no matter whether it's salty or savory. From what
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I understand, the surprise in the middle is one or
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: more salted cured chicken egg yolks. Duck egg yolks. I'm sorry,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: which are Have you ever had one of this? I
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: don't think so. I think i'd probably know if I did.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: It does not get saltier than that. Part of your
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: face will just fall right off after a couple of bites.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: It's crazy, just rise up and falls. You will well,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: then you will like duck eggs. You can get them
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: at um, h Mart. They'll have them in like the
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: dairy section. What'sh mar. Oh, it's like the big Asian
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: grocery store. Korean grocery store. M I don't know about that.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: We have there are local Japanese storey. No, this is
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: like a supermarket. Okay, it's over on two eight five
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: and Peachtree Industrial, of course it is. Yeah, go check
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: it out. Actually it's really good because not only do
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: they have everything that's Asian and like a supermarket format chuck,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: so like all sorts of stuff you've never heard of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: to try, they also have the most outstanding food court
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you will ever encounter in your life. Oh you know what.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I may have been there, then it's really good. Are
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: there like eight eight restaurants? Yeah? Yeah, I've been there
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: because I'm constantly seeking the best egg roll in Atlanta
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: because Atlanta doesn't do egg rolls right. Oh yeah, I
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: never really tried them. Yeah, they're the worst. I finally
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: found a place though. Okay. Anyway, So, as the story
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: goes back in the thirteenth and fourteen centuries, when China
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: was being occupied by Genghis Khan and the Mongols, legend
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  Speaker 1: has it that they didn't like this lotus nut paste,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: and so when they were warring, the Chinese hidden messages
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: about like what they were doing, the date of an uprising,
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  Speaker 1: maybe instructions or you know, how to coordinate the battle,
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  Speaker 1: and they would stick them in these moon cakes, knowing
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: that their message would get through to the Chinese. But
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: because the Mongols didn't like the lotus nut basted, they
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: would just go ah and they'd throw it away. Yeah.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Can't you see like some Mongol horde being like, what
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: is that a mooncake? What's in there? They're like cured
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: salted duck, egg yolk. Yeah, what else? Lotus nut paste?
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Oh God, get it away from me? Yeah, what else? Oh?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Just instructions about the invasion, right exactly. So so that
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: legend apparently is pretty widespread, and some people say that's
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: probably where fortune cookies came from, right yeah, And I think, uh.
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  Speaker 1: The other thing too is that when children are born
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: in China that families send out little cake rolls with
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: messages inside announcing the birth of the child. So there's
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: these couple of things, and the fact that, of course
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that you could have been Chinese restaurants, most people would
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: just assume that they're from China. Yes, but then most
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: people would be wrong because there's basically no one who's
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: looked into this story um or the origin of fortune
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: cookies that is like, yeah, they're from China, that's just wrong.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And we'll tell you where they are actually probably from
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  Speaker 1: right after this, right, where are they from? Japan and America?
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: That's right? Uh? Dating back to the eighteen seventies in Kyoto, Japan,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: they had what we're called fortune crackers. Do you want
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to rattle off that Japanese name? Uh? Suki uda semba man,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: You've really nailed it, Thank you. Can you actually speak Japanese? Though? No,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I just know how to pronounce Japanese words when I
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: see you. I didn't know if you were learning a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: little bit or not. No, it's just it won't stick.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: And I've never like sat down and actually really try.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Well that's not true. I have tried a couple of times,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: but I've never like gone to class or anything. But
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: for the stuff I have tried to pick up, it's
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: just not stuck so far. How good is Yummy's Japanese? Oh,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: it's like pretty much flawless. Well, that's why you don't
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: learn it, because when you go to Japan you're just like,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I'm translator built in. I'm very lucky too, because it's
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: like a second nature impulse for her to just tell
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: me what's going on than just continue on in this conversation.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: It's really it's really helpful. But yeah, it's it's tough
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: not to become dependent on that. She's like, I hate
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: that big dope. I don't know what's going on fac here.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: So yeah, what's that? What's that guy doing? Good stuff?
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: I wish Emily spoke something good? What does she speak?
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So she doing with her life? She studied French, but
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: like like every other kid study a little bit of French,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: she doesn't really know any It's like me and my
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: German were useless. I'm with you, like me in French too.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: But those fortune crackers in Japan from the eighteen seventies
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  Speaker 1: or flavored generally with like mis or sesame or something
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  Speaker 1: like that, not to the fortune cookie that we know.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: The other differentiator is that the fortunes were tucked into
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the bend of the fortune cookie. Pretty lazy people in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Kyoto as opposed to wear inside the actual four yes yes,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: which you don't. I mean, that's not good. They didn't.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: They never learned the bacon stick. No, I guess not.
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  Speaker 1: But they did seem to originate something like fortune cookies.
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  Speaker 1: The question is how did that get to America. That's
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: still unclear. So instead we say, okay, how where did
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: the actual fortune cookie as we know it came from?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And that's actually disputed. But the first, the earliest um
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: story is in nineteen o seven and there's a guy
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: named MacOda Makotagara and he was the caretaker of the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Japanese tea gardens in San Francisco. And there's a story
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I've not been Actually it's a Golden Gate park, right,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: I've got to check it out. But um hog aora san.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: He apparently was fired for being Japanese by the mayor
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: of San Francisco at the time, who said, there's a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: Japanese person taking care of the Japanese tea gardens. It's
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: going park fire. That person not very San Francisco. No,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And apparently Mr Hagiwara was very beloved and the public
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  Speaker 1: came to his aid and made sure that he got rehired. Right,
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  Speaker 1: And it's a thank you. He made legit fortune cookies
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  Speaker 1: like we know them, with little thank you notes inside
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  Speaker 1: and give gave them out to people who supported him.
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  Speaker 1: And like you said, this was nineteen o seven. So
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people say, well, there you go, bing
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: bang boom. That's when it started in the US. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: San Francisco is the home of the fortune cookie, and
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles says not so fast, everybody. Of course, not
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: only were we the ones who invented the fortune cookie,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: it was actually a Cantonese immigrant from China who invented
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: the fortune cookie. No, not in nineteen o seven. I
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: don't even believe your story, says l A. This happened
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: in there was a guy named David Jung, founder of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the Hong Kong Noodle Company, and he used to hand
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: out little fortune cookies with little Bible scripture um printed
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: on them as kind of a me up for people
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: for who were unemployed wandering around Los Angeles that he
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: did encounter. That's right. That's one version of the story.
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  Speaker 1: The other is that he created them as little appetizers.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: When people are waiting very Seinfeldian, waiting for their table
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: at the Chinese restaurant, he would hand them out, uh,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: two people in line as a little appertif I guess
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: to hold you over. So there's a mock court that
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: was put together in three, the Court of Historical Reviews
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and Appeals. I believe they ruled on other stuff previously,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: but in three they took up the issue of them
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: the Fortune Cookie, and being a San Francisco mock court,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: they ruled very clearly that San Francisco was the birthplace
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: of the fortune Cookie. That's right, Ellie and San Francisco,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: they always have hated each other. They're always added over something,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: you know, And I think San Diego is like what
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: about me? For San Diego, they're just down their surfing. Bro. Yeah.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Remember we did that weird show there and that man
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: was church or something. Yeah, And for a little while
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I was convinced that it was the church from um
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Prince of Darkness, the John Carpenter movie. But I went
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: back and watched the movie and I was like, this
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: is in it. But it had the same vibe. Yeah.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I remember two things about that show. I remember it
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: didn't really have a green room bathroom, so I was
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: just in there peeing in the urnals next to everyone
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, there's Chuck. It was like, yeah,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: that's me. And uh, I remember there was a guy
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: on the front row fully filming the entire thing with
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a video camera, and he looked mad about it like
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: he was he was like generating evidence or something. It
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: was weird, so strange. Uh, maybe we'll come back one day,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: San Diego, if you'd get your act together. That's rights.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah. They were made for about forty years with chopsticks,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: which that takes a lot of skill to to fuld
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and make these things with chopsticks. I would think it's
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a very Japanese way to make fortune cookies, and it
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: actually was the Japanese bakers in San Francisco who dominated
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the business from the early twentieth century up until World
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: War Two, when they were forced out of the business
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: because they were also forced out of their homes after
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Pearl harbor Um and the Japanese were uprooted and put
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: into internment camps. And one of the outcomes of that
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: was that they stopped making fortune cookies, and apparently this
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: created a vacuum that the Chinese immigrants in the United
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: States stepped in to fill. Very nice. Uh. Those first
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: fortune cookies in the US did have little proverbs and
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes scripture, but they started to get a little more
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: English and Americanized by the nineteen thirties, and he started
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to get some of these, like you know, Confucius says
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: this kind of things in there. Uh, and then you know,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: poor Richard's Almanac kind of stuff went in there, and
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: then the lottery numbers started creeping in. Never been a
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: big fan of that with a little emoji smiley faces
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and jokes and stuff like that. Not not a big
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: fan of that stuff. No, especially miley faces. Unless there's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: some other message that makes a smiley face appropriate. I'm
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: alright with that. Just give me a classic Fortune. So
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: one of the great ironies of all this chuck is
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that in the mid nineties, the Wanton Food Company, the
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: world's largest maker of Fortune cookies, looked around and said,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: what market have we not penetrated. Europe loves these things,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: America loves these things. What about China? China is gonna
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: love these two And it took off like a rocket
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: right now, It did not at all, And they basically
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: said they're too American for us. And even though they
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: make four million and these things every day, to the
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: tune of about three billion cookies every year, they didn't
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: take off there. They didn't like them, they didn't want them. Yeah,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And I did that math, and apparently they have two factories,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: because you'd be making about eight million a data to
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: come up with three billion. But who knows. I wouldn't
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: be surprised if that's how much they were making. I mean,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: those things are flowing like water here in the States.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Fuzzy math, Yes it is. Um. So I want to
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: give a shout out to What's Cooking America l A,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Times Today, History and um Jennifer eight Lee who popped
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: up and I Think our Chinese Food on Christmas episode.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: She wrote The Fortune Cookie Chronicles adventures in the world
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: of Chinese Food. She did a lot of scholarly research
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: on fortune cookies recently, so hats off to her. Uh
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: and hats off to you guys for listening to this
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: episode of Short Stuff. Short Stuff is away now. Stuff
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
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