Lee says the fortune cookie likely arrived in the United States along with Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii and California between the 1880s and early 1900s, after the Chinese Exclusion Act’s expulsion of Chinese workers left a demand for cheap labor. Nakamachi also uncovered storybooks from 1878 with illustrations of an apprentice who worked in a senbei store making the tsujiura senbei, along with other kinds of crackers. Lee cited Japanese researcher Yasuko Nakamachi, who said she found these cookies at a generations-old family bakery near a popular Shinto shrine just outside of Kyoto in the late 1990s.

The Japanese cracker, Lee wrote, was larger and darker, made with sesame and miso instead of the vanilla and butter used to flavor fortune cookies found in modern Chinese restaurants in America. Lee, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, which recounts the history of the cookie. It’s called the “tsujiura senbei,” or “fortune cracker,” according to Jennifer 8. 1977.Īs far back as the 1870s, some confectionary shops near Kyoto, Japan carried a cracker with the same folded shape and a fortune tucked into the bend, instead of its hollow inside. Try any of these 16 Sunset and Parkside restaurants and catch a glimpse of what it is that makes the west side of San Francisco a culinary powerhouse.Women working at the Lotus Chinese Fortune Cookie bakery in San Francisco, c. The 30-year-old destination for Northern Chinese fare Old Mandarin Islamic Restaurant is firing on all pistons like always, while newcomer Day Moon is supplying neighbors with exquisite pastries and loaves. Still, the Sunset’s favorite roaster Andytown Coffee opened a glimmering new space for It’s-It affogato steps from the beach, though it did so technically in the Richmond.

Small Korean goods purveyor Queens closed out of the blue, as did toast innovator supreme Trouble Coffee. What is the Inner Sunset in comparison to the Central Sunset? Is that even a thing? Does the Outer Sunset really start on 19th Avenue? Doesn’t that feel like too much Outer Sunset against so little Inner Sunset? Needless to say, the Sunset and Parkside districts - all of the Avenues, really - necessitate a bit of a closer look.Īnd it’s been quite the dynamic time for the area’s food and drink scene. Everything west of Stanyan Street and south of Golden Gate Park can get confusing to demarcate.

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