The word "Cai" is both a pictophonetic word and a knowing word. This character first appeared in the small seal script of Shuowen (Figure 1). The upper part of the word "Cai" is like the shape of two grasses, and the lower part is similar to the word "Cai". The upper part of the word "vegetable" in Han Dynasty is like two mountains, and the lower part is "wood". In regular script, the word "Cai" is almost the same as modern characters, but the word "Mi" in the upper part has changed from the middle to two paragraphs. After regular script, it didn't change much until it developed into modern Chinese. ?
The word "Cai" consists of "Fu" and "Cai". From death, choose sound. The word "Meng" means grass, while the word "Cai" means picking something from a certain place, which together means picking grass to eat, that is, getting the original meaning of its food. Because different kinds of dishes can be cooked in different ways and made into various dishes, the word "dish" can also refer to the general name of dishes. ?