Looking forward to mountain veggie season

I've written about it before on City-Cost, but one thing I really love about spring is that it's mountain veggie season. In my home country I don't have a great knowledge of whether or not there are native plants that you can just pick and eat, but some of my neighbors here in Niigata are very keen mountain vegetable foragers and have taught me bits and pieces about where to look locally!

This was a plate of mountain veggie tempura that our neighbor made for us in spring last year, using fuki (butterbur) and kogomi (fiddlehead ferns). If you haven't tried mountain veggies before and you're adept at making tempura with other vegetables, I would recommend giving them a go this way -- super delicious!