Lunch box filled with local rare delicacies
A very special lunch box went on sale just recently in Ina-shi, Nagano Prefecture. It’s a boxed lunch called “Inadani Meibutsu Chinmi Bento (meaning a lunch box full of local rare delicacies of Inadani region)” and it contained various rare ingredients including wild boar meat, bee larvae, locusts, silk worm pupae, and young water bugs. The very exclusive bento boxes were sold on April 10, 2016, at the Cherry Blossom Festival held at Ina Park. Only 100 boxes were prepared and sold at 1500 yen each.
The idea of selling such unique lunch boxes came from a group of retail store owners and local residents, the foundation for the protection of cherry blossoms of Ina Park, and a group of edible insect hunters, the foundation for promotion of local rare delicacies and food culture of Shinshu Inadani region.
The ingredients were cooked in a wide variety ways. Venison was fried up, bear meat were cocked and dressed with miso sauce while wild boar meat were cocked in soy sauce and sugar. Locusts, young water bugs, crucian carps and silk worm pupae were long-simmered in sweetened soy sauce. Bee larvae were cooked with rice and served with simmered Japanese giant hornet as toppings.