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Japanese American Fortune Cookie: A Taste of Fame or Fortune -- Part II
Japanese American Fortune Cookie: A Taste of Fame or Fortune -- Part IIBy Gary Ono >> Read Part I of this article By now, my childhood flashback images of my grandfather’s semi-automatic sembei machine are stroboscopic visual pulsations. I drew pictures of what I saw in my mind’s eye. My Auntie Sue agreed with my memory sketches of the sembei machine and fondly recounted working alongside her father-in-law on occasion in a two-man operation sitting beside the huge carousel-like baking machine. As a youngster, I remember being fascinated by how the machine worked. Automatically, batter would pour into the emptied griddle before it closed and continued around the curve into the baking flames. The batter would bake within the cookie mold and circle around towards the sembei workers on the other side. Approaching the workers, the griddle’s top lid peg would be lifted open by guide rails and expose the hot sweet sembei, which were then plucked out by the workers who would then place and fold the fortune slips inside. Micah Fitzerman-Blue, as a student at Harvard University, cited in his full-flavored 1981 essay, “The Fortune Cookie in America,”
Although the Japanese confectioners began producing fortune cookies again after being released from the internment camps, they eventually succumbed to the now wide spread fortune cookie competition and focused on producing their other Japanese products: manju, mochi, and various rice crackers. The Umeya Rice Cake Company, founded in 1924 by the Hamano brothers, was the lone exception. They are still successfully producing fortune cookies and a variety of other Japanese snacks, which are distributed worldwide. Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park A book published in 1979, The Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park: (1893–1942) by Tanso Ishihara and Gloria Wickham, describes,
Erik Hagiwara-Nagata said of what he learned from his great aunt, Haruko Hagiwara-Matsuishi and other family members, I am strongly convinced that the Benkyodo sembei machine was built to meet the growing needs of the Japanese Tea Garden as stated by George Hagiwara in his 1983 letter. My Auntie Sue doesn’t recall his name, but heard that the builder was a hakujin (Caucasian). Benkyodo was contracted by Makoto Hagiwara to do so in 1918. Evidence follows that some of the sembei iron kata, used by the Tea Garden to hand make the sembei fortune cookies must have been given to Benkyodo by Makoto Hagiwara to manually make fortune cookies until the semi-automatic machine could be designed and built. In a remote storeroom in my late mother’s home, now infrequently used by Benkyodo, I excitedly discovered about two dozen kata. My cousin, Ricky Okamura, knowing my interest in family history, let me take possession of these kata. Some had M.H. engraved on them. I believe M.H. are Makoto Hagiwara’s initials. I verified this with his great granddaughter, Tanako Hagiwara who also believes this to be true. Her family also still has some with the same initials. Some of the kata were plain and some had engravings of the words “Japan Tea” below an outline of Mount Fuji. In her research, Nakamachi visited with various tsujiura confectionary shop owners throughout Japan to learn about how the tsujiura evolved in the different regions. She traveled to San Francisco where she talked with Erik Sumiharu Hagiwara-Nagata and other Japanese and Chinese Americans. Nakamachi established from Erik that the tsujiura sembei was adapted to American tastes and introduced by Hagiwara in the Japanese Tea Garden in the early 1900s. It was made sweet rather than the original savory miso flavor of the tsujiura. I can imagine that my Grandfather Okamura, a confectioner as a “retainer” to the Hagiwara Tea Garden, might have had a hand in helping to formulate the more palatable flavor for American taste. Nakamachi traced the earliest reference to the tsujiura, in an old book, Haru no Wakakusa (Spring Grass) by Shunsui Tamenga, 1830-1844 during the Tokugawa reign. In the book the tsujiura was featured. In her essay, “A Critical View of a Traditional Illustration,” Nakamachi reproduced a woodblock print from the National Diet Library, which was used to illustrate a story she cited from Moshiogusa Kinsei Kidan (Moshiogusa Modern Amazing Stories), from the Meiji era, 1868-1912. The story and illustration presents a character, Kinnosuke as a tsujiura shop worker using kata to bake the tsujiura sembei over a charcoal grill. The kata that were discussed in the Mock Trial and in the possession of Benkyodo and the Hagiwaras are the very same type seen used in this woodblock print. Yasuko Nakamachi presents the fact that the tsujiura sembei has been in Japan well before the times when others claim to have come up with the fortune cookie in America. Her conclusion is that the fortune cookie in America is of Japanese origin and was introduced to America in 1914 by Makoto Hagiwara at the Japanese Tea Garden to American patrons visiting early San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The Japanese American version of the fortune cookie is an adaptation of the tsujiura sembei of Japan, which is documented back to 1847. The folded shape containing the message inside is the tsujiura, a Japanese invention. The primary difference is in the flavor. Sally Osaki said that following the Historical Review Mock Trial the news media published numerous articles. Among them she cited,
This all seems strong enough evidence that the fortune cookie, or at least the tsujiura, the predecessor, is of Japanese origin. I am ready and willing to proclaim that the fortune cookie as we know it today is a Japanese American adaptation of Japan’s tsujiura sembei. Obviously, this will not change anything. The fact remains that the fortune cookie will still be served in Chinese restaurants throughout the world and because of this will continue to be assumed by most to be Chinese. So, essentially, the fame and fortune of the fortune cookie will still “belong” to the Chinese. Some still feel very strongly against this notion. Tomoye Takahashi says,
Summing it up fairly succinctly, a Chinese American in San Francisco’s Chinatown exclaimed, “The Japanese invented it, the Chinese marketed it and the Americans eat it.” Ironically, today the Japanese Tea Garden, a San Francisco public park concession, is leased to Chinese operators! The fortune cookie that is served in the Garden’s teahouse today is produced by, you guessed it, a Chinese American, congenial Simon Chow, owner of Mee Mee Bakery in Chinatown. In closing, I think it would be fun, almost mischievous, to organize all the Japanese restaurants throughout the world to unfailingly give out Almond Cookies to their patrons following their Japanese meals. Who knows, eventually they might become known as … “Japanese” Almond Cookies! Gary T. Ono, is a Sansei transplant from San Francisco, California who now resides in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles. He is a volunteer photographer for the Japanese American National Museum. In 2001, he was awarded a California Civil Liberties Public Education Program grant to produce a video documentary, "Calling Tokyo: Japanese American Radio Broadcasters of World War II." He moderated two education programs at the National Museum: "The Other Side of Tokyo Rose" and a screening of "Calling Tokyo." © Gary Ono
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