The fortune cookie! A small, hard, crunchy, semi-sweet and a wholly undesirable snack many would say. But, out of the many people that idly toss these pastries aside, how many just don't realize the proportions to which it is entrenched in the world. This stale dessert has a side to it that very few truly know, and even fewer truly understand. It can be said that fortune cookies have been one of the most interesting after dinner sweets ever been served.

First off, there is no such thing as a Chinese Fortune Cookie (Lee). Oh, sure that's what it's called over here in the states, but it's an American invention. The Japanese tea cookie was the original paper-bearing bit of crunchy goodness. As the name implies, this cookie was often eaten with tea. It was not, however, eaten for any specific reason other than it tasted good (to them anyway). Supposedly eating sweets after a hefty meal "helps settle the stomach", but I'm of the opinion some little kid said his stomach hurt when he couldn't eat any more peas then was "magically" cured when he had some ice cream.

No one exactly knows how it is that the Japanese tea cookie came to be a Chinese fortune cookie. The "fortune" part is easy..

The fortune cookie is not only a great source for "wisdom" but it's also one of the greatest fallouts for slips of the tongue and bad jokes. If you tell a horribly pathetic joke, you can always say, "Oh, well I got it off a fortune cookie anyway" and the crowd will nod in sagely understanding. People often try to sound smart by saying things they have no clue about. If someone should happen to catch you in this act of deception, once again the blame can be laid at the feet of the fortune cookie. This leaves no one the wiser, no one hurt and you not looking like an idiot.

Next, how is this mind-boggling lump of organic sweetness made? Well, for anyone who has eaten one, it is know that this cookie is pretty standard, as cookies go. It's a blend of flour, water, sugar, salt and egg whites (Ukima). Some might be interested to know, though, that it is a completely outrageous amount of salad oil and cornstarch that gives the cookie its nasty rock-hardness. But, the ingredients of such a distinct delicacy is not what makes it that way... it is the shape of the fortune cookie that heralds its mysterious presence. It must be folded just so in the small frame of time that the dough is still malleable. The skill required to make a fortune cookie correctly is so astronomical that only the greatly experienced and master chefs can do it ...or at least it was until mass production allowed a much easier way to do it. Needless to say, those master chefs suddenly lost popularity in pastry world.

Shape may be restricted to keep a fortune cookie a fortune cookie, but something is still the same shape even if it's 10 times bigger (Amazing fortune cookies)! Giant size fortune cookies are also hitting it big with the public. Now instead of ruining your teeth with a small rock, you can gnaw on a giant one for 10 times as long! Nothing exists for long in giant size that isn't made in miniature. Bit sized fortune cookies are making a name for themselves, but there are no fortunes in the cookie... just six lucky numbers. Maybe in the near future, there will be a fortune cookie cereal.

There is a slight problem with wide dispersion of fortune cookies and the paper package they carry. With the World Wide Web, TV and radio it is often taken for granted that in history such a thing as paper existed. Word of something can be spread by any number of ways, but how many think of a crumbly excuse for a dessert as a messenger? Anything can be put into a fortune cookie. The only people who see what is put in them are the people who do the putting. That means these people could put any form of degrading or incriminating information in them with no one the wiser. It's not that hard to print out stuff in red ink then cut it into l

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Approximate Word count = 1848
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)