10 Fantastic Foodscapes

10 Fantastic Foodscapes

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After a day strolling farmers' markets in 1999, London-based photographer Carl Warner came upon portobello mushrooms when he was struck with an idea: "Their curving trunks and parasol canopies reminded me of trees from some African savannah, and I wondered whether I would be able to create a tabletop scene with them that would give the impression of a much larger-scale landscape," he writes in the introduction of his new book, Carl Warner's Food Landscapes. Since then, he's created everything from cabbage turned into stormy seas to salami reinvented as a rolling Tuscan river. Have a look at our 10 favorite foodscapes below.
"Cabbage Sea"

One of Warner’s favorite pieces, this landscape took him an hour to build, fashioning the boat out of a marrow squash with mange-tout (young peas in the pod), green beans, sugar snap peas, asparagus, seaweed, olives and potatoes. He finished it all off with rough red cabbage seas, an eerie red cabbage sky and a zucchini lighthouse leading the vessel to shore.
"Celery Rain Forest"

Warner decided to switch things up from his usual broccoli trees by using celery for this landscape. Carefully planting each stalk to make sure the light shone through as naturally as possible, he then dressed the forest floor with herbs as well as moss and rocks made from dried mushrooms. The pathway, made of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and lentils, leads to a lake with a dried chili “man” wearing a small mushroom hat and using a cardamom pod oar in an okra canoe. To create a reflection in the water, Warner used a piece of glass under the boat.
"Cereal Dust Bowl"

Warner focused on a 1930s Midwest landscape for this Americana-inspired piece. Both the Airstream trailer and Chevy pickup truck were cut from a crusty white loaf of bread with mushrooms as tires and monkey nuts, dried butter beans, shallots and pasta detailing, all on a dry, litter-strewn floor of oats, cereal, nuts and corn chips. Slim Jims make up the telephone poles with black spaghetti wires while the plants around the trailer are parsley, thyme and onions with ciabatta hills in the background. To add the final touch, Warner shot several pieces of rib-eye steak on a piece of glass and flipped the image upside down, embedding it behind the landscape as clouds moving over the sky.
"Chinese Junk"

Before he exhibited his foodscapes at a Hong Kong market, the event's organizers asked Warner to create a Chinese-themed piece for the show. He immediately thought of the merchant junk ship. Warner and his partner Paul Baker used Wong Kee Pian, a dried Chinese herb, for the ship with dried lotus leaves as sails and masts made from cinnamon sticks. The lanterns are made from physalis (a small orange fruit). Both the waves and stormy sky are bok choy, kai choy and savoy cabbage, and in the foreground, he used everything from mini lychees and kumquats to baby squid and phoenix egg rolls as cargo.
"Crockerville"

His most time-consuming piece to date, this wintry scene for a Betty Crocker Christmas ad took six weeks to complete. Calling in Betty Crocker food stylist Lorna Rhodes to bake the pieces, Warner stuck with staple holiday desserts for his quaint New England–inspired town. Using freshly baked chocolate-chip biscotti and chocolate-peanut cookie treats for the manor house, and double-chocolate rocky road cookie bars for the road, he made the snowman out of macaroons and used fondant icing for the snow.
"Salami River"

This piece is Warner's favorite image from a three-part series he did for the Italian cured meat company Negroni. The river is made from Parma ham with ciabatta bread rocks and mortadella mountains in the background. The fir trees are breadstick trunks wrapped in Parma ham, speck and pancetta, and the log cabin is constructed from breadstick siding with a pepperoni roof.
"Salmon Sea"

Warner was approached for this piece in Finland by advertisers for a butter brand. Using traditional Scandinavian fare, he made the sea from smoked salmon, while the rocks are made from dark soda bread and potatoes with parsley grass. Sugar and pinto beans make up the sand and pebbles, with fresh-dill trees and a little boat made from a pea pod and bean sprout.
"Cart and Balloons"

One of his most successful pieces, "Cart and Balloons" was designed for a popular supermarket in the United Kingdom with the goal of creating “a patchwork of farmed fields across the rolling hills of the countryside.” The agency wanted an equal amount of fruits and vegetables—a challenge since Warner doesn't normally work with fruit—so after serious consideration, he came up with the idea of using fruit as hot air balloons with nuts as the baskets floating over fields of corn, cucumbers, string beans, asparagus and cabbage leaves. The cart is made from spelt crackers, mushrooms and cheese swirls.
"Cheesescape"

A well-known advertising agency for The Lake District Cheese Company of England wanted Warner to use their cheese to recreate the most scenic parts of northern England. He used fresh white bread for the clouds, Cheddar cheese topped with parsley for the mountains, broccoli for the trees, tortilla chips for the small sailboats and a small baguette hull for the steamboat.
"Garlicshire"

Inspired by garlic bulbs he came across on the Isle of Wight, Warner made this “dreamlike fairy-tale world” with elephant garlic and purple Moldavian garlic bulbs for the houses, savoy cabbage leaves for the ground, garlic bread for the rocks and mountains, and garlic oil for the tiny streams. He then put lavender gels over the lights, to make this Hobbit-like scene come to life.
All photos courtesy of Carl Warner.