I watch a lot of food television. It’s been called a weakness of my generation, but I like to think of it as professional research. Some shows I watch for inspiration, letting famous chefs from around the world show me new techniques and exposing me to new cuisines. Other shows I watch for entertainment and excitement.

But my very favorite of the food shows are the ones where the host goes to some bit of beautiful wilderness and spends the daylight hours scouring the forests and the riverbanks. Some leaves here, some seaweed there, perhaps a wild mushroom or two, and the show concludes with a simple but delicious dish that is truly representative of the local cuisine and the forgotten art of foraging.

Wild foods are quite literally the foodstuffs of our ancestors. Remember reading about hunters and gatherers in your history books? This is what they did. They knew what to avoid, what to eat, and what needed to be peeled or cooked first. Most of our lives don’t allow for hours of mushroom hunting, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still taste the mushrooms and their wild peers and appreciate them for what they represent. Restaurants across the world are now incorporating indigenous, grown-in-the-wild vegetables on their menu, and China is no different.

But where the US has fiddlehead ferns, in China we have jue cai (蕨菜), or bracken ferns. In Shanghai, they’re often found pickled or salted for preservation, though further down south, you can find examples of this chewy yet crunchy, grassy yet cabbage-y curled fern in sautéed dishes or blanched and mixed with vinegar and spices. I’m currently using it under my braised short rib accompanied by youmai cai (油麦菜). Jue cai also makes an interesting appearance in my favorite Korean staple, bibimbap.

In some Shanghainese spots you will also find ma lan tou (马兰头)and ji cai (荠菜). Both are widely used in Chinese cuisine, most often blanched and then chilled and chopped up. To me, ma lan tou tastes similar to purslane and has a pronounced freshness. Ji cai is often found in wontons or sautéed with bamboo shoots or nian gao. It has a certain parsley-esque piquance that dances on the palate.

Oh, and mushrooms–I could go on for days about the glory of wild mushrooms. Nearly all of the world’s most valued mushrooms are foraged. There are truffles and porcinis, chanterelles, morels and black trumpets, matsutakes and chicken firs and so many more. There is nothing that we can replicate in a lab that rivals what Mother Nature can do.

I wish I could tell you a single restaurant that would allow you to sample all that the Chinese countryside has to offer but it’s not really that easy. Yunnan restaurants often have a decent selection of foraged vegetables and mushrooms, but in general, just keep an open mind. Ask questions, order things you’ve never heard of, bring an expert if you have to. Either way, you’ll be surprised at what you can get.

When Austin Hu isn't busy writing City Weekend's The Dish blog, he runs things over at Madison. Check out more of his articles here.