中國飲食史的研究目前雖然十分發達，但對於主食或主流飲食外的研究仍相對缺乏，尤其是野味研究。事實上野味是人類尚未進入農牧時期的主食之一，進入農牧時期之後，雖退居非主流地位，但一般人仍有食用野味的習慣，且部分野味因數量稀少轉變成為珍饈，另一方面野味在偏遠地區仍是主要的食材且為主要的蛋白質與動物脂肪來源，因此在飲食史上對於野味的研究實不可輕忽。本文即是針對傳統中國時期的野味之一－竹鼠作探討，主要研究側重竹鼠在傳統中國時期的分佈範圍，捕獵竹鼠的方法與技巧，及人類對竹鼠的利用方式，希望從這幾個方面，探討野味在中國飲食史中的地位，並希望透過這篇文章了解野味在現代社會的意義，及引起中國飲食史上對於非主流飲食的重視。

Though the study of the history of Chinese food culture is flourishing, we find little research on what lies beyond the main current, especially on the wild game food study. In fact, the wild game food was one of the staple foodstuffs before the agricultural-pasturing era. Even in that era, the wild game, though no longer a mainstream food, was still consumed habitually by ordinary people. Some of the wild game became so rare as to be considered delicacies. Furthermore, the wild game food was important food material and the main source of protein and animal fat for people in remote districts. Therefore we cannot neglect the study of the wild game food in the history of food culture. This article focuses on the discussion of one of the wild game food-zhushu 竹鼠-in traditional China. We put special emphasis on the distribution of, the method of catching, and the ways of using zhushu (竹鼠) in traditional China, in order to investigate the position of wild game in the history of Chinese food culture. In this article, we also hope to study the significance of the wild game food in modern society, and to call scholars' attention to non-mainstream food.