Penguin Pokémon’s latest promotional product involves a nice bowl of miso soup.
As part of the Pokémon franchise’s ongoing campaign ‘Project Piplup‘, we’ve seen a number of products promoting the penguin Pokémon come out over the past year. Products include giant Piplup plushies, Piplup pendants and Piplup butt-shaped donuts — you know, the usual range of merch.
In celebration of Project Piplup’s upcoming first anniversary, Pokémon Centers across Japan will hold a ‘PocchaMarche’ (using the Pokémon’s Japanese name of ‘Pocchama’), in which you can buy even more Piplup merch in stores, including this special collaboration with Fumuroya, a store in the city of Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture. The store specialises in making fu.
Fu is a traditional Japanese ingredient made from gluten that is extracted from wheat flour, which is then formed into solid blocks. Fu can be used is an ingredient in meals like miso soup, and while there are various types of fu, Fumuroya’s fu is known as ‘Kaga-fu‘.
Kaga-fu dates back to the Edo Period (1603–1867) when Kanazawa was part of the Kaga Domain, domain of the Tokunaga shogunate. Kanazawa City is well known for its links to the Edo period and even today you can still visit buildings and landmarks untouched from the historical era.
And while Piplup isn’t exactly a Pokémon you might expect to find in any historical reenactments, you can enjoy some Kaga-fu in a nice bowl of soup with ingredients straight from the Edo Period.
This special Piplup Kaga-fu comes inside what appears to be a sweet monaka wafer, but is actually one of Fumuroya’s original products called ‘Takara-fu‘ or ‘Treasure Fu‘. Furumoya describes it as ‘instant soup’, and while miso soup can be considered a treasure all by itself, there’s a fun reason behind the naming of this product.
Takara-fu gets its name from the fact that there are a bunch of vegetables and fu shapes hidden inside it. In order to access the ‘treasure’, you make a hole in the wafer-y outer fu layer with your finger and pour boiling water into the hole, as seen in the video below —
▼ Star shaped fu are hidden inside the outer layer, and pop out with the vegetables when water is poured over them.
The water mixes with the powdered soup, fu, and vegetables to make a hearty bowl of miso soup.
The outer layer of the Takara-fu has Piplup’s face on it, which comes in two designs, eyes open and eyes closed. It’s recommended to make a hole in the side without Piplup’s face, and then spin it over once all the fillings have popped out to make it as aesthetically pleasing as possible.
Piplup Bowls, as the special Piplup Treasure Fu are called, cost 2,160 yen (US$18.70) for a pack of four, and can be bought at Pokémon Centers (except Pokémon Center Shibuya). They can also be purchased on the Fumuroya online store, so any Piplup fan wishing to fill the hole that the limited-time Piplup meringue cookies left behind, give this traditional dish a go!
Source: PR Times, Furumoya official website
Photos: PR Times,
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