THE FORTUNE COOKIE CHRONICLES By Jennifer 8 Lee

A book review by Cat and Quill, freelance editors

 

In March of 2005, an unprecedented number of 110 lucky people shared an $84 million Powerball Lotto jackpot.  Upon learning that every one of the 110 winners had played identical numbers they received in fortune cookies from Chinese restaurants all over the country, Chinese-American newspaper reporter Jennifer 8 Lee set out on a three-year project to research and write about the fortune cookie phenomenon.

 

Jennifer 8’s sweeping investigation uncovered not only a plethora of interesting information about fortune cookies—their origins, manufacturing, distribution, and wisdom—but also a wealth of data concerning Chinese emigration patterns for the past 200  years, the spread of Chinese culture and the resulting world-wide Chinese food craze, most notably the Americanization of Chinese food.  She makes the case that American-Chinese foods like General Tso’s Chicken have developed their own regional identities as they are  integrated, cooked, and sold in many diverse countries.  Her explorations include Chinese cuisine relationships to many of the world’s peoples and cultures including Japanese, French, English, Jewish, and Mexican.

 

As frosting on the cake, Jennifer 8 names a number of super-stars in the world of Chinese food, offers samples from her interviews with them, and tells us where to find them.  After eating her way around the world, she gives us a nicely pared list of the best Chinese restaurants from Paris, France to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

 

During her extensive research involving these many diverse cultures, she interviewed a broad population of Jewish people to learn why Chinese food is wildly popular with kosher Jews.  One interview was with an 81-year old oddity, a Chinese-Jewish woman in Kaifeng, China.  Hoping to receive a profound and wise answer, Jennifer 8 asked, “Why do Jews in America like Chinese food so much?  With a glint in her eye, she slapped the wooden table.  She knew.  I leaned in.  This was the insight for which I had traveled thousands of miles, walked along a highway at midnight, and scoured alleyways.  Her Buddhist koan-like response was profound in its simplicity: ‘Because Chinese food tastes good.’”

 

Jennifer 8’s report is thoughtful, easy to read, and humorous.  She traced the origins of many business and marketing practices, taken for granted as American, and found that those practices had originated with Chinese immigrants and the restaurants they built and managed throughout the U.S.  She has a fresh, straight-forward, enthusiastic writing style, and a delightfully unique way of stating her conclusions; for instance, she explains the innovative advertising method of passing out quantities of take-out menus, saying “ A low-cost method of distributing advertising had led to indiscriminate carpetbombing of materials, which had led to copycat marketers, which had led to infuriated customers, which had led to a back-and-forth in judicial and legislative recourse, which had led to new ways to distribute advertising.  This was spam.  Miss Chang had succeeded in part because she had understood the power of spam before anyone else.  It wasn’t just about the service; it was about the marketing.  I had met the proto-spammer.”

 

We found this book to be a fun, fascinating read, although it was a dash redundant in places.  Throughout the book, Jennifer 8 treated us to a smorgasbord of delightful phrases that have stuck in our minds like the tang of plum sauce.  She writes, “…it was only in the hands of the Chinese immigrants that fortune cookies, a Japanese product, could have become an American phenomenon. These days, fortune cookies are more like food-for-thought cookies…  For people who don’t have time to contemplate the life well lived or read Confucius, Immanuel Kant, or Aristotle, fortune cookies provide the Cliffs Notes version of wisdom.”

 

Jennifer 8 has liberally seasoned her book throughout with a cornucopia of adjectives like crunchy, crispy, tasty, tangy, spicy, and succulent.  Her delicious phrases like, “Each bite is a rapturous gastronomic journey…” and “your tongue experiences the simultaneous ecstasy of sweetness paired with the kick from the chili peppers,” delighted and inspired us.  The greatest draw-back to reading this book was that, after each chapter, we were compelled to race to the phone to place a take-out order from our favorite Chinese Restaurant in Fairfield, California, Dynasty Mongolian B.B.Q. & Mandarin Cuisine on Waterman Blvd., whose crab and cream cheese wontons are to die for.  As long as you aren’t on a diet, Cat and Quill are confident that you will relish reading this book.