🍱 Yakimanju
In Gunma, where wheat is actively produced, many local dishes using wheat flour are popular. Especially, various types of "Manju" (steamed bun with filling) such as those containing baking soda or "Soba" (buckwheat) are made, and among them, the distinctive one is "Yakimanju" (grilled manju), where sweet miso sauce is applied to "Manju" skewered on a stick and then grilled. It is said that the origin of this dish dates back to the late Edo period when a person named Harashima Ruizo in Maebashi created "Misoduke manju" (Manju dipped into miso sauce). At that time, using "Doburoku" (unrefined sake) as a fermentation agent to make "Manju" was rare, and the idea of skewering "Manju" on a bamboo stick was also accepted with surprise. Furthermore, the miso used at that time was not particularly sweet, but in the Meiji era, "Kuromitsu" (brown sugar syrup) started to be imported, leading to a change in taste that is closer to the current flavor.