Why do you want to eat Laba porridge on the eighth day of the lunar month?

The origin and customs of Laba Festival The eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the Laba Festival in China, and the folk have the habit of eating Laba porridge. Laba porridge is also called eight treasure porridge, according to legend, Laba Festival is the day of the Buddha's "enlightenment", the Buddhist temple should imitate the story of the shepherd girl offering millet, take eight kinds of fragrant valley and fruit to make porridge for the Buddha, so the name is eight treasure porridge, Laba porridge is simple, nutritious, sweet taste. In the Song Dynasty, the people rushed to follow suit, and it was widely spread, becoming a delicacy loved by the people.

The eighth day of the lunar month is regarded as the Buddha's enlightenment day by the Buddhist circles, and the monks and nuns in the temple often cook the "Eight Treasures Porridge" with glutinous rice, sesame seeds, Yiren, Guiyuan, red dates, shiitake mushrooms, lotus seeds, etc., invite the surrounding mountain people to have holy communion, and give alms to the old and young to share food, in order to show their respect for the Buddha. Later, it gradually became a folk self-cooked eight-treasure porridge (called Laba porridge) to eat. The custom of eating "Laba porridge" was formed.

On the eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, the ancient monasteries should take the fragrant grain and fruits and cook them into porridge to worship the Buddha, and the people also follow the example of cooking such porridge on the eighth day of the lunar month to eat it, so as to eliminate disasters and diseases. In the Song Dynasty, the folk Laba porridge in Hangzhou was made with "walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmons, chestnuts and the like" and rice. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, eating laba porridge was popular in various places.

Laba porridge is nominally full of eight raw materials, but it is not rigid, with four or five kinds of less, and more than a dozen kinds of things. In some places, Laba porridge is boiled with glutinous rice, brown sugar, 18 kinds of dried fruits and beans, which is very grand. Lotus seeds, ginkgo biloba, peanuts, red dates, pine nuts and ginger cinnamon and other seasonings are mixed with rice to cook into laba porridge, which has the effect of warming hands and feet and nourishing the body.

There are also laba porridges made with cowpeas, golden needles, fungus, tofu, mushrooms, etc., and these are "fine laba". The Laba porridge eaten by ordinary people is made by mixing greens, soybeans, broad beans, tofu, carrots, and water chestnuts into rice, which is the so-called "coarse Laba". In some places in northern China that do not produce or produce less rice, people do not eat Laba porridge, but eat Laba noodles.

The next day, the noodles are rolled out with various fruits and vegetables, and the whole family eats Laba noodles on the morning of the eighth day of the lunar month. In some mountainous areas where corn is produced, corn is used instead of rice to make "Laba wheat kernels" to eat. The farmer's custom is that every Laba day, they have to make a meal of Laba porridge to eat.

Laba porridge is all the things in the house, everything that is delicious and can be eaten, can be put in a pot in an appropriate amount, soybeans, mung beans, cowpeas, peas, ground eggs, yams, carrots and wheat flour, corn flour, sorghum flour, barley flour, etc., miscellaneous and boiled into a pot of porridge. It is often said that if you eat all, you will grow all. Wax month, that is, the year has arrived, and all the grains and vegetables must be eaten all year round, so as to have comprehensive nutrition.

This is a prayer for the health of the human body and the prosperity of the family! The second is to eat all, harvest all, after the wax month, it is the new year, when eating Laba porridge, the five grains and various vegetables that grow in the field that year are eaten, and nothing is disliked, indicating that the farmer cherishes everything harvested on the land, and hopes that in the new year, any crops can grow well and can be rich. w

The origin of Laba porridge is related to Buddhism, and the meaning of Laba porridge is that it is not only a seasonal delicacy, but also a good health product, as well as the meaning of warmth, perfection and harmony.

The custom of Laba Festival originated in Buddhism. The eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the day of the Buddha's enlightenment, and people in ancient India will eat a bowl of porridge on this day in order to commemorate the Buddha's suffering before the Buddha's enlightenment in Laba, as well as the day when the Buddha became a Buddha in Laba.

After Buddhism was introduced to China, various temples would make fragrant rice and fruits into porridge and give it to believers. In the later development, Laba porridge was cooked, and it was to be offered to the Buddha first, and then to be sent to relatives and friends, and it had to be sent out before noon.

The leftover Laba porridge is then given to the family to eat, and the remaining Laba porridge, after several days of storage, there are still some left, which is regarded as a good omen, meaning "more than every year". In the Song Dynasty, people began to cook and drink porridge on the day of "Laba", and it continues to this day.

Laba porridge, depending on the local specialty, the ingredients used are also different. There are also those that go well with Laba, which are made with eight kinds of ingredients.

However, barley, carrots, and green vegetables are all indispensable foods, and traditional Chinese medicine believes that barley has the effect of strengthening the spleen, tonifying the lungs, clearing away heat and dampness, and has a good effect on chronic enteritis and indigestion when taken for a long time. Barley is rich in dietary fiber, which can prevent high blood pressure, high blood pressure, and cardiovascular diseases.

In addition, you can also choose peanuts, soybeans, lotus seeds, ginkgo seeds, tofu, tofu, taro, etc. If you want to add more ingredients, you can put fungus, red dates, vegetarian bean cakes, vegetarian ham, and shiitake mushrooms.

In addition, eating Laba porridge on Laba Day also has the meaning of warmth, completeness, harmony, auspiciousness, health, cooperation, nutrition, indifference, convenience, gratitude, joy, and bonding. Tianjin folk customs in Laba the night before, good men and women twist beans to make porridge, each twist a bean, said to be a bean.

We all know that Laba porridge is a popular traditional food, it has more preparations, richer ingredients, and more flavors, both sweet and salty, and many people will drink Laba porridge. So is Laba porridge drunk on the eighth day of the first month or the eighteenth? Let's take a closer look!

Laba porridge is generally drunk on the eighth day of the lunar month every year.

The eighth day of the lunar month of the month of the year is the traditional folk festival of our country, according to different customs, take a variety of grains and grains to boil into sweet or salty "Laba porridge" to show life to drive away the cold and seek blessings. There is also pickled garlic in vinegar. Then in the twenty-third year, I ate "stove candy", and eating stove candy said that it sticks to the mouth of the "villain" and sweetens the mouth of a good person.

Every year in the lunar month, the first lunar month of the hometown is the "Laba". Every household will prepare some red dates, millet, red, peanuts, red beans, walnuts, yams, lotus seeds and the like in advance! There are no rules, just do whatever you have.

Beans, red dates and other difficult to cook should be soaked in advance, to the morning of the eighth day of the lunar month, it is best to use the firewood stove to boil out a pot of steaming Laba porridge, the fragrant, sweet smell is really amazing.

There are two theories about drinking "Laba porridge":

One is that the Laba Festival is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, which originated at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty. It is rumored that Zhu Yuanzhang was in prison and suffered, when the weather was cold, cold and hungry, Zhu Yuanzhang dug out several kinds of grains such as red beans, rice, and red dates from the mouse hole in the cell and boiled them into porridge to ward off the cold and stop hunger. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang designated this day as Laba Festival, and the porridge of miscellaneous grains was designated as Laba porridge to commemorate.

The second is that the day of Laba Festival is a grand sacrificial festival of Buddhism, and it is said that this day is the day when Shakyamuni became a Buddha. Laba Festival originated in India and later spread to China and became a traditional festival in China.

The main ingredients are: rice: there are more glutinous rice and rice.

Beans: There are more red beans, cowpeas, mung beans, and lentils.

The excipients are:1Nut rhizomes are: peanuts, red dates, yams, taro, lotus seeds, lilies, longan, ginkgo seeds, wolfberry, walnut kernels, chestnuts, water chestnuts, almonds, raisins, lychees, etc.

2.Vegetables and meats include: carrots, greens, mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, lean meat, tofu, etc.

Therefore, the customs of different places are different, and the ingredients in Laba porridge are also different. Lean meat is generally added in the south, but few are found in the north. You can cook it according to your preference and the combination of ingredients.

The eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the day of Buddha's enlightenment. On this day, the temple will hold a commemorative puja, called the enlightenment meeting, the Laba meeting, and the "Laba porridge" for the Buddha to feast on.

Why did the Buddha make offerings of Laba porridge on the day of enlightenment? The reason for this can be traced back to Prince Siddhartha, who practiced penance in the ascetic forest for six years, eating one hemp and one wheat per day, and tempering his desire to seek enlightenment with indifferent materials. Gradually, the prince realized:

If people in the world chase material desires and indulge in excessive pleasures, it is not easy to achieve the path of liberation, but if they are obsessed with asceticism, they will only cause physical and mental suffering, like dead wood and ashes, and they will not be able to realize Bodhi.

When the prince had this realization and understood the inadequacy of asceticism, he immediately got up from his ascetic seat and walked down the Nilian Zen River, so that the flowing water that had been pure for many years washed away the filth on his body. But because of the prince's thin form, he fell down on the bank of the Nirenchan River with fatigue and weakness, and after a while, the prince stood up with his hand on the branch of the tree hanging down from the bank, and after not walking a few steps, he collapsed on the shore again.

At this time, there was a shepherd girl named Nandapola by the river, grazing on the grassland by the river, and she suddenly saw a thin young man lying on the bank of the river, as if she had no strength, and she immediately felt sympathy, and came to offer the prince with milk in her hand.

The prince accepted a glass of milk from the shepherdess, and the delicacy of it was incomprehensible. After drinking, the five bodies were smooth and gradually regained their strength. So he crossed the river, walked to the Vajra seat under a luxuriant Bodhi tree on Mount Gaya, sat upright and meditated, and finally saw the stars on the night of the eighth day of the twelfth month and became enlightened and attained enlightenment.

Due to the allusion of the shepherdess's offering of chyle, later Chinese Buddhists took effect and offered porridge to the Buddha with grains and fruits on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month every year, which was called "Laba porridge". Along the way, this custom has gradually spread to the people, and ordinary people also cook Laba porridge on this day, which has become one of the folk customs.