Thursday, June 18, 2026

Question: Though it’s a staple of American Chinese restaurants, the fortune cookie is widely traced to a Japanese immigrant who served the treat at a public garden in which California city in the early 1900s?

Answer: San Francisco. Makoto Hagiwara, who operated the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, is widely credited with popularizing the modern fortune cookie there around 1914, likely adapting it from the Japanese tsujiura senbei tradition, though the cookie’s origins remain disputed.