“How to make a snail food?”

This sentence is the axis, not only to cook but to make this mapping project. Reviewing and rewinding the migration route of the African Land Snail (Achatina fulica), I attempt to portray their Age of Discovery in ecological history. The African Land Snail have their origin in East Africa; they were introduced to Taiwan from Singapore by a government official during the Japanese colonial period in 1933 for the purpose of food farming. This creature, who emerges after rain, separately invaded the Hawaiian Islands, Indonesia, North Borneo, and Malay Peninsula at similar times. These regions shared the experience of empire’s spread, while transforming these incursions into their own cultural development.

The snail has become an interface for me to think about the hybridity of local cultures—setting sail to Singapore, collaborating with local artists to explore attitudes towards the snail as an ingredient in a range of recipes, and creating an accumulating map of foodscapes during the research process. How to think about mapping a cookbook? “Map” originally comes from mappamundi in Latin, which means “draw the world on a cloth.” I apply the embroidery of Taiwan’s Indigenous people on a traditional costume while using a needle as pen, so that the sewing becomes my  ink to write and to research. As “needle road” implies the “seaway  map,”  the snail is the compass in this project.   (translation by  San-San Liu)