Butterbur

Butterbur — known as fuki in Japanese — is a perennial plant whose thick, hollow leaf stalks are eaten as a vegetable in East Asian cuisines. The stalks have a distinctive mild bitterness and herbaceous aroma, with a texture similar to celery but firmer.

In Japanese cooking, fuki is typically peeled, blanched, and simmered in dashi-based broths as a side dish, or preserved in a sweet miso paste (fuki-miso) as a condiment for rice. It is considered a seasonal spring delicacy and is associated with mountain vegetable (sansai) cuisine. The young flower buds (fuki-no-tō) are also eaten, often as tempura.

Butterbur grows wild in parts of Australia as a naturalised plant, and prepared fuki can sometimes be found at Japanese grocery stores. The raw stalks require preparation before eating, as they contain compounds that are bitter and mildly toxic until blanched.