"fortune cookie" news and stories

Happy Fortune Cookie Day!

Three billion fortune cookies are manufactured annually, with the majority being created for Chinese-restaurant diners in the United States. Once popularly thought to have been invented by a bevy of Chinese restaurants in California in the early 1900s, recent research has linked the cookies to Japanese tradition instead, after literature indicated the presence of fortune-wrapped cookies ("sujiura senbei") in late 1800s Japan.

Arguably more prized for their oft-hokey messages, which have been the subject of dozens of books, than for their simple edible composition, fortune cookies are actually relatively easy to make. Plus, the best part about making them yourself is being in charge of creating your fortunes, so you never have to read about what enigmatic things "Confucius say" again!

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Happy Chinese New Year! We're celebrating with fortune cookies. Made from humble flour, sugar, butter, milk and vanilla, these crunchy cookies and their prophecies can serve as everything from hilarious entertainment to weird compliments to advice on how to play the lottery.

Fortune cookies can predict the mundane or the outrageous, and chances are they're both comical and confusing. Here, the top 10 messages hidden inside:

10. "Good sense is the master of human life."

9. "You are free to invent your life."

8. "You are magnetic in your bearing."

Our list, as collected by Rinkworks.com, continues after the jump.

How often do you take the message inside your fortune cookie seriously? If you're anything like me, you read them for a quick giggle and then leave them crumpled on the table. Occasionally I'll keep one if it seems particularly applicable to something I'm going through, but that's fairly rare.

But what if you got a fortune that predicted bad times ahead? Or one that suggested that "Perhaps you've been focusing too much on yourself." Or even possibly "Your luck is just not there. Attend to practical matters today." These are just a few of the fortunes that consumers have been discovering lately in the cookies produced and distributed by Wonton Food, the country's largest fortune cookie manufacturer.

Apparently, they decided to spice things up and so hired some new freelance writers to create new fortunes. These insulting and dire notes are what these new writers came up with. The backlash has been swift, as people have written into the company to complain about the negative nature of their fortunes. Wonton Food is planning on keeping most of the new messages in circulation, but have admitted that they will be taking a few of the most offensive messages out of their cookies.

[Via New York Times]

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