It's a grass, all right, but one that has grown to occupy a special-if not surprising-place in Chinese gastronomy.

The mighty bamboo starts small. And if you catch them as they just emerge, bamboo shoots are tender, juicy and full of flavor.

Bamboo grows all over China and-despite its height-is actually a grass. It is quick-growing and covers large tracts of land all over southern and southwestern China.

It is a pliable material that is used to make everything from entire houses to baskets as small as a cricket's cage. Use of bamboo furniture, such as sets of tables and chairs, ladders, hoes, trays and mats is legion and, sometimes, unexpected.

In Sichuan, for example, they specialize in tiny delicate spoon-like contraptions that are designed to clean the inside of ears.

Apart from its vast range of utilitarian purposes, bamboo also produces bamboo shoots, a uniquely Chinese ingredient seldom seen in other cuisines.

Yes, Korean and Japanese cooking make use of bamboo shoots, too, but no one prepares them like the Chinese chef.

When the spring thunderstorms come, the bamboo forests wake. As the rain soaks into the earth, dormant shoots that have been hibernating underground all winter start to swell and poke their tips through the ground.