International audience Since Antiquity meat was in China both the symbol of greediness and, represented with vegetables and fruits, a necessary part of the diet based on cereals. For those who could afford to eat more than gruels of corse grains or light vegetable broths, the possibility of including various meat and fish products in the ordinary fare was also a way to express wealth and social status. The fasting of méat was ritualized and accepted in certain circumstances, for instance, for funerals or religious purposes. Under the Song Dynasty a kind of "fast cuisine," which nevertheless allowed a small proportion of animal products, was systematized and proposed as a model diet for those literati who were not directly engaged in world affaire and preferred to live retired or even secluded. The most famous recipes book for this cuisine is the Shanjia qinggong by Lin Hong (fl. 1241-1252) which contains 104 refined recipes based essentially on "mountain products" composed mainly of wild plants, vegetables, cereals, and less often of some venison. Thèse were to be prepared when receiving friends. In this article the author tries to understand how this altogether hygienic and moralistic type of cuisine imposed itself from Song Dynasty on as the external sign of a voluntary adhésion to a virtuous, healthy, and plain life, constrasting with the "somptuous" way of life of the ordinary literati engaged in politics.