菜 cài = 艹 (cǎo, the grass radical) + 采 (cǎi, to pick or gather). The top element 艹 is the grass radical, the two short strokes that mark a word as belonging to plants. Below it sits 采 cǎi, itself a picture of a hand (爫) reaching over a tree (木) to pluck its fruit. So 采 supplies both the sound (cǎi shifting to cài) and a fitting hint of meaning: 菜 is the plant you gather to eat, the greens picked for the pot.

From that picked plant the character branches into four everyday senses:

1. Vegetable, greens. The literal sense, the edible plant: 蔬菜 shūcài (vegetables), 青菜 qīngcài (green vegetables), 白菜 báicài (Chinese cabbage).
2. A dish, a course. Any prepared dish that reaches the table, not only the vegetable ones: 点菜 diǎn cài (to order dishes), 做菜 zuò cài (to cook), 菜单 càidān (menu), 一道菜 yī dào cài (one dish).
3. A cuisine, a cooking tradition. A whole regional style: 中国菜 Zhōngguó cài (Chinese food), 川菜 chuāncài (Sichuan cuisine), 粤菜 yuècài (Cantonese cuisine).
4. Colloquial: weak, lousy. Modern internet slang turns 菜 into an adjective for poor skill, as in 菜鸟 càiniǎo (a noob, literally a fledgling bird) or 太菜了 "so bad (at this)."

The thread running through every sense is the table. What starts as a plant in the field (vegetable) becomes a plate of cooked food (dish), then a named tradition of cooking it (cuisine), and finally, by a playful leap, a verdict on whether someone is any good. Wherever you meet 菜, the question is what is being served, or who is being served up.

At the restaurant 菜 stops meaning the plant and starts meaning the plate. A 菜 here is any cooked dish, meat as readily as vegetable, and the verbs that surround it map a whole meal. You 点菜 diǎn cài (point at items to order them, the 点 of "to choose a dot on a list"), the kitchen 做菜 zuò cài (makes the dishes), and the food arrives as 一道菜 yī dào cài (one course) after another. To see the broader life of 点, from dots and o'clock to ordering, visit the 点 entry.

The list you order from is the 菜单 càidān, literally the "dish slip." Cook for guests at home and you serve 几个菜 jǐ ge cài (a few dishes); the unmarked staples a family eats day to day are 家常菜 jiāchángcài, "home-regular dishes." In every case 菜 has shifted from ingredient to outcome: not the greens in the basket, but the food on the table.

Stretch 菜 wider still and it names a whole cooking tradition. 中国菜 Zhōngguó cài is Chinese food as a category, and within it the regions divide into named schools, each a place-name plus 菜. The Eight Great Cuisines (八大菜系 bā dà càixì) include 川菜 chuāncài, the bold ma-la heat of Sichuan; 粤菜 yuècài, the light, fresh Cantonese style of the south; 鲁菜 lǔcài of Shandong; and 苏菜 sūcài of Jiangsu, among others. To call a restaurant a 川菜馆 is to promise Sichuan peppercorn and chili.

The same frame works for foreign food: 日本菜 Rìběn cài (Japanese food), 法国菜 Fǎguó cài (French food), 西餐 xīcān being the broader word for Western food. So 菜, which began as a single picked plant, ends up labeling the entire culinary map, one region or nation at a time.

See a hand reaching over a plant: that is 采 cǎi, to pick, sheltered under the grass radical 艹. Together they are 菜, the greens gathered to be eaten. Hold that one image of picking plants and the senses fan out from it like dishes carried to a table.

Picked from the field, it is a vegetable (蔬菜, 白菜). Cooked and carried out, it is a dish (做菜, 点菜, 菜单). Named by its region, it is a cuisine (川菜, 粤菜). And turned into slang, it is the verdict on a fledgling who is still no good at the task (菜鸟). Whenever you meet 菜, picture the picked plant first, then ask whether it is still in the basket, on the plate, on the regional map, or aimed as a tease.