菜cài

菜 (cài, "vegetable") is a modern simplified form (簡體) that combines the grass radical (艹) with the phonetic component 采, originally meaning to pick or gather. Together they paint a picture of edible plants harvested from the field — the very greens that grace the Chinese dinner table. The traditional form is also 菜, so this character required no change when simplification swept across mainland China.