This is Bill Tsutsui with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

For everyone who thinks that everything was first invented by the Chinese, here’s a surprise: fortune cookies were NOT. That’s right. New research shows that fortune cookies, those ubiquitous desserts that come with the check at every Chinese restaurant in America, were invented in … Japan. And not recently either. There are references to tsujiura senbei or fortune crackers in a 19th century book of stories that show a baker making the cookies in the same way they are currently made at a shop in Kyoto. No one is exactly sure how the senbei made the leap to U.S. Chinese restaurants, but even the Japanese agree it was fortunate, marketing-wise: by 1960, this dessert had become so much a part of American culture, they were used in two presidential campaigns. Sweet!

With thanks to Randi Hacker for this text, from the KU Center for East Asian Studies, I’m Bill Tsutsui. Wish you were here.