I love fortune cookies.
There is absolutely no reason why I should love fortune cookies.
I love fortune cookies.
And not just the silly words on the paper in the middle. I'm talking about the crusty, near-flavorless origami crackers which house those little slips of paper. They're perfect. I especially love how they all seem to be dusted with a specially fine layer of fortune crumbs, which sticks to your fingers. Now, this isn't a food blog. I'm not really set up to do a review of the fortune cookie as a culinary experience, and I certainly don't want to know what goes in the making them. But the truth is, the fortune cookie is the perfect after-dinner delight. Light on the palet, small enough to be enjoyed quickly (and simple enough to be complimentary), with a charmingly subtle hint of vanilla.
If you, like most people I know, are more taken with the paper wisdom lodged inside the fortune cookie than with the cookie itself, then read on. I started this post with my paradoxical love of a nearly worthless food item. The greater paradox, though, is the paper fortune itself. We love them, exactly because they are often the dumbest thing we'll encounter on any given day. I understand the attraction, I suppose. A conversation piece, a quick laugh, a taste of mystery. Sure, whatever. But some people save these things. They stick them in their wallets, next to pictures of their grandkids. At the end of a deliciously Americanized Chinese dinner, who hasn't participated in the ancient ritual of reading aloud your fortune? Everyone reads, everyone lifts their eyebrows and makes a few odd sounds, and everyone laughs.
My latest fortune cookie promised that I "will be advanced socially, without any special effort." What? Is that a good thing? Why is that desirable, and how the hell would a cookie know that? My point here is twofold: first, there's no accounting for the fact that sometimes we just like stupid stuff. For me, it's Jim Varney movies, vanilla mint toothpaste, tetris, and fortune cookies. They're all stupid, and I love em. And that's okay--some people would argue that if you rounded up all the essentially pointless things a group of people does for entertainment, you might call that "culture."
Second, there are some pieces of paper that will never go away. At the end of time, when everything is computerized and the Matrix has taken over and the mining of unobtanium threatens to destroy Pandora, we'll all still be enjoying the one-line wisdom of some unknown factory worker like our parents did.
Hope your week is going great--stay tuned for a slightly more consequential piece of paper, coming your way this week.
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