Posted by The Reporter, CO on October 19, 2008 at 14:14:59:
Crumbling a cookie myth
By Ann Schmidt-Fogarty/Special to the Reporter
New York Times reporter Jennifer 8. Lee's quest to discover the fortune cookie's origins led to her first book, "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles," published in March. (Photo by Nina Subin) Jennifer 8. Lee says she has a passion.
"I'm obsessed with Chinese food," said Lee, a metropolitan reporter for the New York Times and a first-time author of the book "The Fortune Cookie Chronicles" (Twelve, $24.99, 320 pages).
Born and raised in New York City, and a child of Chinese immigrants (Lee added the number 8. to her own name while a teenager), she realized there were many mysteries to her favorite Chinese dishes. "I have to admit, when I decided to do some research about the cuisine, I learned that I really didn't know much about what I was eating."
This knowledge (or lack of it) led Lee on a project that would give her and her readers a greater understanding of a food embraced worldwide.
As a child, Lee regularly delivered a crisp $20 bill from her mother to their favorite Chinese restaurant near the family apartment for dinner. She knew that the meals she enjoyed from those white, deliciously steaming baskets were somewhat different than the ones her mother made at home. She assumed that the restaurant Chinese food her family often ate at home was much like it was served in the old country, right?
Wrong.
Lee learned that Chinese food she ate was as American as ... well, apple pie.
"Think," she asked, "when was the last time you ate apple pie? Now, when was the last time you had Chinese food? In fact, there are more Chinese restaurants in the United States than McDonald's, Burger King and KFC combined."
But that wasn't the biggest
shock. Lee discovered (when she read Amy Tan's "Joy Luck Club") that her favorite after-dinner sweet, the fortune cookie, wasn't Chinese at all. She likened the discovery to finding out you were adopted or that Santa Claus wasn't real.
But if fortune cookies weren't invented in China, where did they come from?
"I simply thought they were made somewhere in America. And then I began to become interested in the Americanization of all the Chinese food I had eaten."
Fortune cookies lead to fortune
When an overwhelming number of winners came forth to claim their prize after a multi-state Powerball contest ended in 2005, lottery officials were puzzled. Why were there dozens more winners than usual? Was this some kind of fraud?
It was later revealed that many of the winners used numbers from the tiny mass-produced slips of paper inside their fortune cookies -- the message urging them to use the "lucky numbers." Lee was fascinated by the connection. She tracked down many of the winners and the Chinese restaurants they frequented, trying a lot of dishes along the way, many of the menus adapted to their customers' tastes.
The strangest thing on a menu? "I'd have to say it was a Chow Mein sandwich served in the Southeast," she said. " Wow...starch on starch."
Lee traveled the country, with stops in Wyoming, New Mexico, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Kansas, Arizona and the back roads of Minnesota. "I even met a Powerball winner who had been an organizer of the Elvis Presley Fan Club way back when. She showed me his letters -- Elvis was a very bad speller."
When Lee sampled the foods from the winners' restaurants she always used General Tso's Chicken as her baseline menu choice. "I began to wonder who General Tso was and why we were eating his chicken dish, so I decided to go to China to find out."
'Nonsense!'
After arriving in China, it didn't take long to learn that General Tso was a famous military hero during the Ching Dynasty in the 1800s, and that there were still plenty of relatives of the general here.
Lee was the first to tell his relatives that he was not only famous for his heroism, but for a popular entree in America.
Then set met the chef who invented the world-renowned chicken and showed him photographs of the different American variations. "He got very upset when he saw all the changes to his recipe," she says. "After viewing some of the photos he simply said 'Nonsense!' and walked off."
Another surreal experience occurred in China. "I took some fortune cookies with me and had people sample them there," she says. "They had never seen them before and didn't quite know what to do with them."
Her quest to determine the origins of the elusive fortune-cookie mystery took her on a globetrotting life of its own. Lee next traveled to Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore and Bangkok to complete her research. "I actually flew to all those places within two weeks and took a 24-hour flight to Newark. We landed at 3 p.m. and I was back to my desk at the New York Times at 7 p.m. that same day," she said, obviously still astonished by her hard-to-fathom itinerary.
Dark history
Along her discovery route, Lee learned the evolution of the Chinese restaurant in America -- much of its history steeped hardship and prejudice. Chinese workers who came to the West Coast during the Gold Rush in the 1840s-50s, "ended up having to survive by doing what was considered to be "women's work" (laundering and cooking) so American men wouldn't be threatened by their taking their jobs away," Lee said.
Violence caused many of the immigrants to flee, and they wound up throughout the United States, bringing their skills with them. An uneasiness about the ingredients in Chinese food (there was a fear of cats, rats or dogs as meat), made the going tough. Until the invention of Chop Suey.
"That was the biggest gastronomical joke in history," says Lee. "They used familiar ingredients, like chicken, pork or beef along with vaguely exotic vegetables and the dish became the fashionable thing to eat. But the meaning of Chop Suey in Chinese is 'odds and ends.' "
Perhaps Lee is most pleased about what she uncovered during her search: the answer. Traveling throughout the U.S. and speaking with experts on Chinese and Japanese dishes, she learned that hardship, luck and timing all played a role in its popularity. It turns out that what we consider to be a Chinese sweet has its roots firmly in Japan, the original birthplace of the treat.
"During World War Two, we locked up all the Japanese citizens, and businesses were liquidated, including those who owned bakeries," she explained. "The Chinese were our allies, and with rationing, they were able to provide delicious meals with very little meat. A sharp interest in fortune cookies followed. Chinese and Japanese often shared neighborhoods, so, the cookies were easily developed."
Impacting knowledge
As part of her continuing research on the cuisine, Lee met with writers who create those cute, brief, enigmatic or strange messages that are inserted into a fortune cookie. "The writers told me they get their inspiration from Hallmark, the Bible, TV and movies. One day, in New Mexico, I got one that said 'Do or do not. There is no try.' That's from the Empire Strikes Back -- Yoda is our new Confucius."
Lee is still excited about her "Fortune Cookie Chronicles" discoveries -- and very amused about all the interest in the humble cookie. "I took a snapshot of Wikipedia's description of the cookie. After my book came out, the information on it was changed. I got very excited -- I impacted knowledge!"
Opening new doors
Lee says we can point to the Chinese culture for a lot of the things that Americans eat today. "I think Chinese food has opened the door for other cuisines -- like Japanese and Thai. It's imbedded in our society. People don't think twice while ordering a green tea latte at Starbucks and American children today love sushi."
When asked whether her journey has killed her interest in Chinese restaurants, she answers emphatically.
"To my people, it's not Chinese food -- it's food. And I'll always order the General Tso chicken. I love to see what people do to it."
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