Clearing your plate
A hermit was fasting and not eating bread, and he went to visit another hermit. By chance some other pilgrims came there and the hermit made them a little vegetable soup.
When they sat down to eat, the fasting hermit took a single pea which he dipped in the soup and chewed it. When they got up from the table, the hermit took him to one side and said, “Brother, if you visit someone, don’t make a display there of your way of life. If you want to keep your own rule, stay in your cell and never go out.”
The brother accepted the advice, and thenceforth behaved like other people and ate what was put before him.
– De vitis Patrum, Sive Verba Seniorum, Liber V