2008-08-16 Is Yoda really the new Confucius??

`The Fortune Cookie Chronicles' is a really interesting read; a mixture of social history; personal anecdotes; food appreciation and a personal quest to find out where fortune cookies originated. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of Chinese-American culture (and this book does reflect a very American view of Chinese culture and food rather than a British one.) The book covers such diverse subjects as:
-The Kosher duck crisis of 1989 (I never realised that Jewish people and the Chinese had such an affinity)
- The origins of take-away food
- The people who write the fortunes that go inside the cookies (and why Yoda has taken the place of Confucius!)
- Illegal Chinese immigration to the US
- Rows about soy sauce
- How there were a record amount of lottery winners after people had played the 'lucky numbers' inside their cookies
- the origins of those fabulous American take-out boxes
And how people who are culturally Chinese adapt to a western way of life.

I learned a lot through reading this book, although I would say that some of the chapters drag a little. Overall though an entertaining and unusual read