Fortune cookies are an after-meal staple in Chinese restaurants across the globe, but culinary sleuthing has found that Japan is the historical birthplace of the paper-bearing treats.

Sushi bars could benefit from a dessert tray consisting of fortune cookies and sake…

A woodcut scene from 1878 is considered the clincher for establishing Japanese origin. As for how they migrated from Japanese cuisine to Chinese, by way of the American melting pot:

Early on, Chinese-owned restaurants discovered the cookies, too. Ms. Nakamachi speculates that Chinese-owned manufacturers began to take over fortune cookie production during World War II, when Japanese bakeries all over the West Coast closed as Japanese-Americans were rounded up and sent to internment camps.

Sadly, none of this shed light on the mystery that is the empty fortune cookie.