Collections: Fortune cookie mold
Jennifer 8 Lee, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, not only did a splendid talk on her recent appearance at the Smithsonian to capture the audience’s attention, but she also led us to great contacts on fortune-cookie history. One of the people she introduced to me was Gary Ono, who claims to have originated his grandfather helped to reformulate the flavor of a Japanese confection that led to the spread of the fortune cookie in the U.S. One of the mysteries of the fortune cookie is… is it Japanese, Chinese, or American? Interestingly enough, there are multiple stories to this. However, here we are going to focus on Gary Ono’s grandfather: Suyeichi Okamura, a immigrant from Japan who started Benkyodo, a Japanese confectionery store in San Francisco in 1906.
Suyeichi of Benkyodo was asked to supply fortune cookies by Makoto Hagiwara, a landscape designer who ran the Japanese Tea Garden at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, California. This antique sembei iron kata (hand skillet mold) was used in the Japanese Tea Garden to hand-make the fortune cookies one at a time.
Gary also found plain, M.H. engraved (Makoto Hagiwara’s initials) and Japan Tea and Mount Fuji engraved molds, which made cookies sold at Japanese Tea Garden as tea cookies to customers. Benkyodo continued to be the Japanese Tea Garden’s sole supplier of fortune cookies and other Japanese confectioneries until the outbreak of World War II. While Japanese Americans were locked up in prison camps, Chinese immigrants found this golden opportunity to start producing fortune cookies in America. Now fortune cookies are associated with Chinese restaurants and thought to be a Chinese invention by many in the U.S. After the war, Gary remembers that his grandfather started making fortune cookies again.
Photo credit: Gary Ono
Courtesy of Suyeichi & Owai Okamura family, Benkyodo Co., San Francisco
I never ever said that I “claims to have originated the fortune cookie in the U.S.” Please make the necessary correction.
I strongly feel that my grandfather, Suyeichi Okamura, as a confectioner “retainer” to Makoto Hagiwara helped to reformulate the flavor of the savory tasting Tsujiura Sembei, which originated in Japan and made it more suited to American taste. Then Makoto Hagiwara introduced it to America in the San Francisco Japanese Tea Garden, ca. 1915.
There are also many other remarks that are very confusing. I hope I can be sent future copies of what is planned to posted in advance of posting or publication. Thank you.
Thanks for commenting, Gary. I’ve reworded the sentence you pointed out a little bit. In light of transparency, I’ve used strikeouts for the original wording of the article.
We would love for you to contribute first hand your words and thoughts on the matter. I apologize if your words were misinterpreted by the writer of this article.
Again, we appreciate your input and definitely want to continue corresponding with you in the future.
I would also like to clarify that Benkyodo was hired by Makoto Hagiwara to help produce fortune cookies faster. Up until then the Hagiwara family was producing FC on their own with the use of the Katas. I imagine that Katas were given to Benkyodo to use to make FCs and then Benkyodo developed the semi-automatic Sembei machine to “mass-produce” FCs for the Japanese Tea Garden.
Thank you Gary for clarifying the working arrangement between Makoto Hagiwara and Benkyōdo. I’d appreciate your continued support of our work.