THE ROVING EYE
Chinatown idylls
“We don’t make them here,” was the mantra for my walk through
Chinatown. Fortune cookies were everywhere, but even bakeries that
looked promising — i.e., filled with Caucasian tourists as opposed to
Asian locals — all gave me that “not here” refrain. “Where?” got me no
further, resulting in confused looks, shrugged shoulders, or a waving of
the hands accompanied by “Bayview, in Bayview.”
Earlier I’d tried by phone, but the results were even less
satisfactory. At least here I was getting to look at fortune cookies,
and though as a herd they all look alike, as individual confections it’s
possible to discern specifics in each. My goal, however, was not to
start a fortune cookie mug-book, but to find its genesis.
Wandering north along Stockton Street, I realized I was about to run
out of Chinatown to search through, and felt at a loss as to where to
continue my search. Then, within sight of Little City Meat Market and
the delis constituting the informal demarcation line between Chinese and
Italian North beach, I saw a glowing neon fortune cookie in a window
with an on-site production sign. Not believing my luck, I entered,
feeling like Galahad responding to a “Holy Grail Nightclub” marquee in
the middle of nowhere.
An elderly Chinese woman asked me what I wanted, but my questions
couldn’t make it over the language barrier. Finally, she told me I’d
have to talk to “Simon,” who would be there sometime after nine the next
morning. Having about eighteen hours to kill before the Fortune Cookie
Summit Meeting, I decided that background work into the whole affair of
fortunes and auguries was in order.
Western fascination with the unknown traces its occult roots directly
back to Assyrian and Canaanite influences on Italo-Etruscan
civilization. The Etruscans had their own version of fortune cookie
divination, called “haruspication,” the reading of livers to foresee the
future. When the Romans took over Etruria, they assimilated the
Etruscans’ fascination with auguries and it’s been a fortune telling
straight shot from them to us.
Ancient Chinese auguries involved the inscription of enigmatic verses
on animal shoulder bones and tortoise shells, which were roasted until
they cracked. Heat fractures running through the script were interpreted
by augurs consulting esoteric texts pertaining to the cosmic interplay
between yin and yang and what it all means...which brings us back to
fortune cookies.
The next morning I’m back at Mee Mee Bakery and meet Simon Chow, a
friendly, slender, middle-aged man who puts aside his mid-morning bowl
of noodles to give me the fortune cookie skinny. Mee Mee is the oldest
fortune cookie company in San Francisco, moving to its present location
“from just up the street, many years ago.” When you enter the store
there are old pictures of the original machines and men twisting cookies
into shape by hand. The entire process is now automated, the old
machines being “retired with great respect after working very hard.” Mee
Mee’s now runs four machines, each baking twenty cookies a minute, which
comes to about 40,000 cookies every eight-hour shift. The store windows
are crowded with plastic bags containing regular, chocolate, or
strawberry cookies, with prices starting at $3.60 a pound. Mee Mee’s is
also home to the “Giant Fortune Cookie,” six inches in diameter and
costing $7.90 for regular or $20 for custom.
Getting down to basics, I ask Simon where fortune cookies originated.
“San Francisco, of course... though some people say L.A... but that’s
not true.” And the fortunes themselves? Who writes them? The fortunes
have been around as long as the bakery, and according to Simon they’ve
been coming from the same source since day one. The bakery can provide
custom messages, up to thirty-two characters, and it’s not unusual for
businesses to order cookies with ads inside.
I’m still talking theory when Simon asks if I’d like a tour. Once
past the crowded front counters, we work our way through a narrow path
crowded with machinery and flour sacks. Once I see the machines, it’s
obvious why most other bakeries outsource their fortune cookies. They’re
huge. Four of them take up an enormous amount of floor space. Cast iron
and chrome, they stand about five feet high and cover about 50 square
feet. The dough, consisting of flour, sugar, butter, sesame seeds, and a
bit of egg-shell coloring, gets pumped into the cookie machine from
large plastic buckets and pours onto what look like two-inch-wide
Belgian waffle irons on a metal conveyer belt. Once the little bake pans
are tripped shut, the belts pull them into a round, flat, closed-top
oven to cook for three to four minutes at 500 degrees. When the pans
come out the other side, the tops automatically flip open and the
cookies fall into wire racks moving toward a lever which pushes the
paper fortunes out of a chute onto the center of each cookie. From there
the warm, pliable cookie is conveyed onto a folding apparatus which
bends it into its familiar shape. Finally, the cookie rolls to the end
of the conveyer belt and falls into a plastic barrel, ready for
packaging.
The baking area is very hot, and even with fans blowing the three men
tending the machines have lobster-red faces, though they all go out of
their way to nod or say hello. A two-man crew is wrestling flour into a
squat, heavy, white enamel dough machine, which Simon informs me first
saw duty in the galley of a battleship during World War II. From what I
can see, it has plenty of fight left in it.
As I leave, Simon hands me his card and a bag of cookies, telling me
to let him know if any more questions come up. I thank him, saying I’ll
be back for more cookies. The morning fog has burned off so I put on my
sunglasses and crack open a cookie: “Beauty, like truth, is all around
you.” Pondering the fortune, I crunch away. Sure beats reading livers.
Walter Lenci & Michael Elwell. Mee Mee Bakery is located at
1328 Stockton Street in San Francisco (415 362-3204).
