Cooking Up Mouthfuls of Wisdom Challenges a Silent Sage

Did you ever wonder who thinks up those fortune cookie messages that say mysterious things like “A hidden admirer desires you from afar?”

Is it done by computer? A wizened grandmother steeped in Confucian lore? A literary hack?

The chief writer of fortune cookie prose for the Peking Noodle Co. in Glassell Park is Donna Tong, a 30-year-old with a finance degree, who is secretary-treasurer of the family-owned business. And, after two years, Tong said, the glamour has crumbled considerably.

“It’s very tough to come up with many different messages that don’t say the same thing,” said Tong, sitting at a desk overflowing with fortune cookies.

She keeps a computer list of about 500 messages that she updates once a year. Many are her own creations. Others are culled from lists that have made the rounds of fortune cookie makers for decades.

Each message is printed and stuffed into hundreds of thousands of cookies.

A cheerful woman with a wry sense of humor, Tong sometimes chafes at the limitations of writing for fortune cookies. Messages must be brief--no longer than one sentence--and stick to general topics. A typical example, she said, is: “Confidence will lead you on to success.”

Tong said she feels most creative when composing custom messages that clients use for special events. Her favorites include: “The crew from ’60 Minutes’ will show up at your office for ‘Just a few questions’ ” and “Having tax problems beats having money problems.”

Some customers have canceled cookie orders because patrons grumbled about the fortunes, Tong said. Restaurant owners say some patrons take fortune cookie messages quite seriously, complaining if they dislike the message and demanding a new cookie.

For inspiration, Tong haunts libraries and Oriental bookstores. She looks through horoscope books. She eats at Chinese restaurants and cracks open other companies’ cookies.

Peking Noodle Co. turns out about 200,000 fortune cookies daily besides making noodles and the flour skins for egg rolls and won tons.

The factory on San Fernando Road employs about 30 people. A half-dozen intricate machines squirt a doughy mixture of flour, sugar, eggs and shortening into round molds, which then slide into a large oven.

Once the cookie is cooked, a mechanical hand plucks it out, still warm, and a paper message two inches long and one-quarter inch wide is placed on its flat, pancake-like surface. Another machine then folds the cookie twice and plops it onto a conveyor belt until it drops into a plastic bucket.

Tong wouldn’t discuss profit figures but said business has more than doubled in the past five years. McDonald’s restaurants recently ordered 10 million fortune cookies for a promotion, Tong said.

Her company also accepts orders as small as 200.