Even before their tender tops can pierce through the surface, they are quickly spotted and harvested. These fat "winter shoots" are boiled to get rid of the white alkali crystals in their hearts and stripped of their inedible outer leaves.

Lightly salted water will help them keep longer, and they are canned or bottled quickly, ending up in homes and restaurants as the thin, cream-colored slices we all know.

Bamboo shoots must be processed as soon as they are harvested, or they will quickly deteriorate once out of the ground. In southwestern China, the mountains of the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region produce slender shoots that are harvested only when they are about 10 centimeters long.

They are dug out in the hills and sent by a flying-fox system down to the valley where a busy production line strips them of leaves and pickles them immediately.

This is the famous suansun, the tangy pickled bamboo shoots that go into practically every bowl of noodles in that region.

Nearer the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area, equally tender shoots are brined whole in sugar and salt for the famous "hand-stripped bamboo shoots", shoubosun.

They are delicious as a chilled appetizer, or as an accompaniment to millet or bean porridge.