Friday, February 21, 2014

The Mystery of the Fortune Cookie

This has got to be one of the greatest fortune cookie readings ever: "Love because it is the only true adventure." Excellent!

A little research reveals the most probable source for this particular fortune: Nikki Giovanni (b. 1943). I found a reference to the original one-word longer sentence, from which this is derived, dating back to at least 1981.  
As for the design of the modern fortune cookie, it seems to date back about a hundred years, and to within the USA -- probably in California, but Brooklyn has a traceable history of fortune cookie production going back quite a little ways, too. 

Do you have a fortune cookie ritual? Must you eat the whole thing to "make it so?"  And, what else about fortune cookies, if anything, inspires your imagination?

Today's Rune: Signals.   

3 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

Lana had a kind of ritual when I first met her. I never had a ritual myself and most of the time never even opened my cookie.

jodi said...

Erik-I think the cookies taste like cardboard, but I would never NOT open one! They provide conversation ideas for those last few minutes while waiting for your change!

Adorably Dead said...

The only ritual my friends and I have is adding 'in my pants' or 'between the sheets' to the end of the fortune after we read it to each other.