The Fortune Cookie Quest

No dish of General Tso's, chow mein, or beef and broccoli is
complete without a fortune cookie at the end. In fact, factories
churn out an estimated *three billion* of these folded confections
every year, mostly for the U.S. market. So how did fortune cookies
become not just a quintessential part of Chinese takeout, but also
an American cultural icon? This episode, we crack open the history
of the fortune cookie to get at the conflicted origins—or, at the
very least, the winning lottery numbers—hidden within. With the
help of author Jennifer 8 Lee, we trace the origin of this oracular
cookie back in time: from a court case pitting one set of cookie
pioneers in San Francisco against their Angeleno rivals, all the
way to the tiny town that may have started it all...a town that's
(gasp!) not even in China! Your fortune today: listen carefully,
and all will be revealed.  Learn more about your ad choices.
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