Japanese Tsujiura senbei are the Chinese fortune cookies… or rather they are the American fortune cookies... or rather…
Fortune cookies – as we know them today, that is, crispy, crescent-shaped pouches, to break open and extract the note with your fortune written on it– are the product of Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the United States.
It was Yasuko Nakamachi, a researcher at Kanagawa University’s Institute, who, after discovering fortune cookies during a stay in New York in the 1980s, then noticed a similar product in Japan once she returned home, namely the tsujiura senbei.
The exact same treats she saw being made herself in the outskirts of Kyoto in a family-run bakery
These Japanese “fortune cookies” are softer, larger and with the note not enclosed inside, but placed in a fold, and with sesame and miso in the dough, no vanilla or fats and probably with joshinko, that is, Japanese rice flour.
The tsujiura senbei, which arrived in America after World War I, were particularly appreciated at the Tea Garden in San Francisco: they were prepared by Makoto Hagiwara, assisted by some employees of Chinese origin and by Chinese customers.
It was the Chinese who revisited the recipe for industrial production which, in just a few years, completely overshadowed the senbei and today in San Francisco’s Chinatown, you can visit the Golden Gate Fortune Cookies Factory.
The shape, which is folded in half and has a piece of paper with a brief word written inside, originates from the Tsujiura rice crackers, which were distributed in shrines to celebrate the new year in the Hokuriku region of Japan.
Hagiwara offered these rice crackers (called “japanese cookies” in English) to his guests as part of their tea containing omikuji, that is: a ticket containing a divine prediction, an oracle written that is drawn at Shinto and Buddhist temples in Japan on special holidays to know one’s fate.
Fortune cookies also contain lucky numbers, famous sayings, and proverbs.
My choice: 水に流す – mizu ni nagasu.
It literally means “let it flow in the water”.
This is equivalent to the English saying: “Water under the bridge” or “Forgive and forget”.
- Difficulty: Difficult
- Cost: Very economical
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 20 Pieces
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Japanese
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 4 egg whites
- 120 g rice flour
- 1 tablespoon rice starch
- 200 g sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- to taste sesame
Steps
Add 6 tablespoons of water to the egg whites.
Mix the rice flour with the starch, add the sugar and salt. Add to the egg whites. Combine the sesame.
Spread 1 tablespoon of batter on a baking sheet and with a circular motion create a thin cookie about 2.75 inches in diameter.
Bake a few cookies at a time in the oven at 428°F for 8 minutes.
Fold the cookie in half while still warm, place it on the edge of a cup to form the fold, and place each cookie in a muffin tin to keep it from losing shape.
Place the note in the fold.
In China, fortune cookies are unknown.
In the movie “Iron Man 3” (2013), the character Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) in one scene says:
“Did you know? Fortune cookies aren’t Chinese. They were made by Americans using a Japanese recipe“.
