Nate Barksdale remembered of his Let’s Go India researchers wrote in his report on Dharamsala back in 1998 — to wit, that one of the Dalai Lama’s lesser-known tools of statecraft involves choosing between balls of dough that had little notes hidden inside. (fortune cookie-ish yes?)

There’s even an explanation from the Tibetan government-in-exile:

Varieties of Divination:

i) Doughball Divination: This method is practised mainly in the monasteries or by individual lamas when an important decisions needs to be made, such as in the search for the reincarnation of very high lamas. A number of possible answers to the enquiry, such as the names of likely candidates for a reincarnation, are written on slips of paper. These are then encased in equal sized balls of dough. Great care is taken to weigh the dough balls to ensure that they are exactly the same size. The doughballs are then placed in a bowl, which is carefully sealed and placed in front of a sacred object, such as the Jowo statue in the main temple in Lhasa, images of Dharma protectors or the funerary monuments of great lamas, requesting their inspiration in deciding the outcome. For a period of three days monks remain in the temple reciting prayers day and night. During that time no one is allowed to touch the bowl. On the fourth day, before all those present the cover of the bowl is removed. A prominent lama rolls the doughballs round in the bowl before the sacred object until one of them falls out. That is the ball containing the answer.

Benjamin Wallace (author of the forthcoming book The Billionaire’s Vinegar) passed me this amazing artwork by Robert Deckey (his artist brother-in-law who apparently doesn’t have a Web site that I can dig out) — a portrait of Mao Zedong made out of hundreds of fortune cookies.

Here is some promotional information from his 2007 collection. (Don’t agree with idea that fortune cookies are “an American invention to inspire poor Chinese immigrants to work harder and have hope,” but whatever)

Robert Deckey

The artist was inspired by the dramatic contrast between a visit to China for the Shanghai Biennale in 2006, and the poverty and constraint he experienced in 1989. Many of the protesters in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Uprising wanted democracy but didn’t know what it was. Today, many contemporary Chinese artists want to make art, but their definition of art is a parody of the commercialization they perceive in society. Many of China’s contemporary artist are making art “for export” with commercial purpose and are missing the true value of the aesthetics of art. The artist is also interested in China’s uneasy relationship with the United States, which is both drawn to the communist republic’s economic might and repelled by
its indifference to human rights and intellectual property laws.

Fortune cookies are an American invention to inspire poor Chinese immigrants to work harder and have hope.

The artist is American and was born in Rhode Island. He began making artwork at 5 when he attended a summer camp run by RISD students for children of professors, where his father taught. Robert has a bachelor of arts from Brown University, a masters from the University of Pennsylvania, and has studied painting at the School of Visual Arts and the Art Students League in New York City.

Many people have sent me fortune-cookie themed presents and cards to congratulate me on the book. Here are some of them pictured here. (I especially like the jewelish-encrusted one). Some of them were even engraved. All came with a special fortune inside

What amused me. Fortune cookies made not be made in China. But fortune cookie
mementos are –

During my trip to China, I took along boxes of Wonton Food’s fortune cookies and gave them out to Chinese people along the way. This is a compilation of their reactions. (The people here are from Houyu, Kaifeng, Shenzhen and Changsha).

Police were able to arrest two robbery suspects in Tulsa, Oklahoma because they found matching fortune cookies from the robbed Chinese restaurant and in the crooks’ pockets, according to this Associated Press story.

The crooks loved fortune cookies so much, that not only did they take money they grabbed fortune cookies on their way out the door?

To be honest, I don’t know that matching fortune cookies is enough to catch suspicion as many stores in that area probably use the same distributors.

Here is the mp3 of an interview I did on the origin of the fortune cookie on Wisconsin Public Radio a week ago, along with Eric Hagiwara, for their Friday food program. (I know. Delay. Book craziness. Why else am I catching up on blogging on a Saturday morning at 6 a.m.?!).

They liked me well enough that they might have me back to talk about dumplings.