Snake Fang Salad - Culinary Travails in China

Snake Fang Salad is China sour and sweet, pungent and sublime - through the grass-roots gaze of travel photographer Greg Elms. On assignment for Lonely Planet to capture one of the world's oldest culinary traditions in a bunch of images, he discovers oriental cuisine is not as easily framed as he'd like, and conundrums are served with every meal. Snake Fang Salad follows Greg's path around the Middle Kingdom, clutching a shot list of hundreds of food items and ingredients required. There are fruits to ferret out, vegetables to chase down, and a stomach-punishing barrage of restaurants, cafes and dishes to digest. Greg is on a search and shoot mission for such exotica as fried scorpions and purple carrots, as well as the seemingly mundane but surprisingly elusive spring roll. Greg resists the temptation to simply order up big at his local Chinese takeaway in Melbourne, seeking out each item in its native environment - dirt floors, chipped Chinaware, wonky tables and all. With his cumbersome cargo of photographic equipment, Greg circumnavigates a large slice of the world's most populous nation, beginning amongst the karst peaks of Yangshuo and ending up in the food lover's frenzy of Guangzhou. As if his merry-go-round of destinations wasn't already enough, Greg adds nappy changes and wails of monsoonal tears, when he's joined for the journey's second half, by his wife and nine month old son. Snake Fang Salad is a food-fuelled tale of culinary question marks, a story as bizarre as it is real, and a personal portrait of a nation increasingly intrinsic to Western life...