Theyāre American, with a Japanese origin.
San Francisco families have long claimed to have invented them, but the truth lies elsewhere.
In 2008, a research student traced their history to the Library of the National Diet of Japan. There, she uncovered the Moshiogusa Kinsei Kidan (1878), an illustrated book showing an apprentice baker making āfortune crackers.ā These Japanese cookies appeared nearly 30 years before immigrants in California published their first cookie advertisements.
Sources: Cookist