Wait, err, there's a wasp in my icecream

Northland Regional Council chairman Craig Brown had just one thought when he chomped into an ice-cream topping of frozen wasp larvae and pupae - "I sure hope these things don't come alive when they warm up."
Icecreams topped with frozen larvae and pupae are the NRC's wild food offering at the 2011 Northland Field Days being held at Dargaville from March 3-5.
Mr Brown said he had agreed to sample the wasp larvae and pupae topping after being "led to believe" the product would be presented as a sprinkling of finely chopped pieces on top of the icecream.
"First I saw what looked like giant maggots, then I heard the sound of staff laughing," he said.
"It was very ... challenging. The topping was sort of crunchy because it was still a little bit frozen. The problem wasn't so much the taste, it was the fact that my imagination started to run away with me. I was doing my level best to swallow but it took time."
NRC events and partnerships co-ordinator Katherine Mabbitt said her take on the icecream topping had a "woody taste, crunchy texture, honey-like smell".
The larvae and pupae are harvested from giant underground "nestcakes" dug out of beech forests on the South Island's West Coast.
The harvesters have to wear heavily protective clothing because removing the larvae and pupae enrages the adult wasps.
The extracted nestcakes are frozen to kill the young insects within.
The creamy-coloured larvae and charcoal-coloured pupae are then laboriously extracted one at a time from tiny individual cells similar to those found in a beehive.
Ms Mabbitt said the adult German wasps are voracious feeders which decimate native insects, so in the words of Bio Suppliers Ltd "we're doing the ecosystem a favour by digging them up and turning them into tucker".
The product is mainly used as feed for turtles.
The NRC will serve more than 1000 portions of the free icecream during the Field Days.
The council has developed a tradition of serving food made from pests as a fun way of attracting visitors to its marquee display and highlighting its region-wide pest control work.
Previous wild food treats have included possum and goat meat pies; crackers topped with possum pate; wild rabbit sausages, and breakfast sausages flavoured with the peppery leaves of native shrubs kawakawa and horopito.