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Can you guess which prefecture is serving up the local speciality?

Travelling around Japan in summer means you get to enjoy a huge variety of soft serve ice creams, all representing their region with prized local ingredients like fried chicken, scallops, and even gold leaf. Now there’s a new limited edition release to add to this year’s season of must-try flavours, and this one includes two delicious-sounding ingredients: wormwood and locusts.

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Lovingly called the “Azemichi Sofuto Kurimu“, or “The Path Between Rice Fields Soft Serve“, the ice cream is designed to conjure up images of rice fields and country scenery from the locale where it’s served, in Niigata Prefecture’s Uonuma City.

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The local tourism centre is continually thinking of inventive ways to promote local ingredients through ice cream. Last year, they came up with the Bamboo Grass Dumpling Soft Serve and this year they’re using green Japanese mugwort, or wormwood, as the soft serve base, and dressing it up with five candied locusts, which have been boiled in sugar and soy sauce.

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▼ If you really like your locusts, you can add another five to the topping for an additional 50 yen (US$.50).

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The crunchy, salty locusts are said to bring a perfect balance to the sweetness of the creamy soft serve. If you’re game enough to try the tantalising combination, the ice cream is available only from the Yukiguni Tourism Centre, where they retail for 350 yen each.

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Store Information
Ippukudo at Yukiguni Tourism Centre, Sakanano Village / いっぷく堂雪国観光センター 魚野の里
Address: Niigata-ken, Minamiuonuma, Ubashimashinden 699
新潟県南魚沼市姥島新田699
Hours: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
Website (Japanese)

Source: @Press
Images: @Press (edited by RocketNews24)