📖 Meaning
Literally means not eating cooked food, referring to Daoist ascetics who abstained from worldly nourishment. Metaphorically, it describes poetry or prose whose conception is lofty and language is pure and elegant, transcending the ordinary. It can also characterize a person as ethereal, detached from worldly concerns.
📜 Origin Story
The phrase originates from the first chapter of the Qing-dynasty novel 《终有报》, where a character is described as 'people all say he does not eat smoke and fire, his bearing seeming almost immortal.' The expression draws on Daoist cultivation practices that advocated abstaining from grains and cooked food to attain spiritual transcendence. Over time, literati adopted it as a metaphor for writing that is exceptionally refined, fresh, and free of mundane vulgarity, as seen in critiques such as the one in 《玉娇梨》.
💡 Example Usage
这位隐士不食烟火，终日隐居深山，以松露泉水为食。
This recluse, eating no cooked food, lives secluded in the deep mountains, sustaining himself on pine nuts and spring water.
🏷️ Category
➕ Similar Idioms
➖ Opposite Idioms
🔤 Quick Facts
- Chinese: 不食烟火
- Pinyin: bù shí yān huǒ
- Literal Translation: not, eat, smoke, fire
- Category: Quality
- Characters: 4