Legend 1: According to legend, in the northern part of ancient India, there was a king of suddhodana, who had a son named Gautama Siddhartha. When he was young, he felt all kinds of pains of life, old age, illness and death, found social life futile, and was extremely dissatisfied with the theocracy of Brahmanism, so he abandoned the king at the age of 29. According to history, this day is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in China. Because he is a Sakyamuni, Buddhists later addressed him as Sakyamuni, which means the Sage of Sakyamuni.
It is said that before Sakyamuni became a Buddha, he had practiced asceticism for many years, and he was so hungry that he decided not to practice asceticism. Then I met a shepherdess and gave him chyle to eat. He ate chyle, regained his strength, sat down under the bodhi tree and became a Taoist on December 8. December is the twelfth month in the summer calendar, so December 8 is called Laba. In the Han area of China, this day was regarded as Sakyamuni's enlightenment day, so Laba became a Buddhist festival. After Buddhism was introduced into China, monasteries were built in various places, and the activity of cooking porridge to worship Buddha became popular. Especially on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, when Sakyamuni was sacrificed to practice Buddhism, all monasteries held chanting, and imitated the legendary story of a herdess offering chyle before Buddhism became Buddhism, and made porridge for Buddha with fragrant grains and fruits, named Laba porridge. This is the origin of Laba porridge.
Legend 2: There is an interesting story about the origin of Laba porridge. It is said that when Zhu Yuanzhang was a child, his family was very poor, so he herded cattle for a rich man. One day, when I came back from herding cattle, I crossed a wooden bridge. The cow slipped and fell off the bridge and broke its leg. The old rich man was angry and put him in a house without food. Zhu Yuanzhang was so hungry that he suddenly found a rat hole in the house. When he opened it, it turned out to be a granary for rats, which contained rice, beans and red dates. He put these things together and cooked a pot of porridge, which tasted very sweet and delicious. Later, when Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he remembered it again and asked the chef to cook a pot of porridge mixed with all kinds of grain and beans. It happened to be the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, so it was called Laba porridge.
Actually, our country has a history of drinking Laba porridge for more than 1 years. It first began in the Song Dynasty. On the day of Laba, whether it's the imperial court, the government, the temple or the people's house of Limin, Laba porridge will be cooked. In the Ming Dynasty, rice, ginkgo, walnut kernel and chestnuts were added to cook porridge. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of drinking Laba porridge was even more popular. At court, emperors, queens and princes all give laba porridge to ministers of civil and military affairs and attendants, and distribute rice and fruits to monasteries for monks to eat. In the folk, every household should also make Laba porridge to worship their ancestors; At the same time, family groups get together to eat and give gifts to relatives and friends. The famous Lama Temple Laba porridge, in addition to grains such as glutinous rice and millet, also contains diced mutton and cream. The porridge noodles are sprinkled with red dates, longan, walnuts, raisins, melon seeds and green shredded pork.
according to the China lunar calendar, December is called the twelfth lunar month, and the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is also called "Laba Festival". "La" and "Shuo Wen Jie Zi" are called "La, three days after the Winter Solstice, La Worship Hundred Gods", which shows that "La" was originally an ancient ritual activity held on the third day after the Winter Solstice. "Customs Pass" records: "Xia Yue Jia Ping, Yin Yue Qing Si, Zhou Yue Da La, Han changed to Yue La. Those who wax, hunt, and hunt animals in the field to sacrifice ancestors. " After a year's growth, all kinds of animals are plump and beautiful, and farmers who rest in winter hunt them for sacrifice, which can be said to be well taken and used at that time. However, the date in La Worship was not fixed at that time, and it was stipulated to be held on the third day after the winter solstice every year, and this day was called "La Ri". It began in the Southern and Northern Dynasties to designate the twelfth lunar month as the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Zong Yi of the Liang Dynasty in the Southern Dynasties clearly recorded in the Chronicle of Jingchu: "December 8 is the twelfth lunar month." As a result, Laba became an important festival in the twelfth lunar month.
Laba porridge was cooked with adzuki beans and glutinous rice in ancient times, and then the materials gradually increased. People in the Southern Song Dynasty carefully wrote "Old Wulin Stories" and said: "It is called Laba porridge to make porridge with walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmon mushrooms and persimmon chestnuts." Up to now, people in the vast areas of Jiangnan, Northeast and Northwest China still have the custom of eating Laba porridge, which is rare in Guangdong. The materials used are different, and glutinous rice, red beans, dates, chestnuts, peanuts, ginkgo, lotus seeds and lilies are often used to cook sweet porridge. There are also longan, longan meat and candied fruit that are cooked. Eating a bowl of steaming Laba porridge in winter is delicious and nutritious, and it can really increase happiness and longevity.
Legend 3: Laba Festival comes from the custom of "playing ghost with red beans". Legend has it that Zhuan Xu, one of the five emperors in ancient times, turned three sons into evil spirits after their death, and came out to frighten children. In ancient times, people generally believed in superstition and were afraid of ghosts and gods. They believed that adults and children suffered from stroke and were in poor health because of epidemic ghosts. These evil spirits are fearless, only afraid of red (red) beans, so there is a saying that "red beans play ghosts." Therefore, on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, red adzuki beans and red adzuki beans are used to cook porridge to dispel the epidemic and welcome the auspicious.
Legend 4: Laba Festival stems from people's memory of Yue Fei, a loyal minister. At that time, Yue Fei led his troops to fight against gold in Zhuxian Town, which was in the severe winter of September. Yue Jiajun was poor in food and clothing, hungry and cold, and all the people sent porridge one after another. Yue Jiajun had a full meal of "thousands of porridge" sent by the people, and the result was a great victory. It was the eighth day of December. After Yue Fei's death, in order to commemorate him, people cooked porridge with miscellaneous grains and beans on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, which finally became a custom.
legend 5: when Qin Shihuang built the great wall, all the migrant workers were ordered to come, and they could not go home for many years, so they relied on their families to send them food. Some migrant workers, whose homes are separated by thousands of waters in Qian Shan, can't deliver food, which causes many migrant workers to starve to death at the Great Wall site. One year, on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, migrant workers who had no food accumulated a few handfuls of coarse grains in partnership, boiled them into gruel in a pot, each drank a bowl, and finally starved to death under the Great Wall. In order to mourn the migrant workers who starved to death at the Great Wall construction site, people eat "Laba porridge" every year on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month as a souvenir.
Legend 6: According to legend, the old couple lived a hard-working and thrifty life, saving a lot of family business, but their precious son failed to live up to expectations, and it was not virtuous to marry a daughter-in-law. On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the young couple were both frozen and hungry. Fortunately, villagers and neighbors helped them and cooked a pot of rice, noodles, beans and vegetables. It means: "Eat a mixed porridge and remember the lesson." This porridge made the young couple get rid of their bad habits, embark on the right path, and live by hard work, and their days are getting better day by day. The popular custom of eating porridge in Laba is that people follow it to warn future generations.
Customs of Laba Festival
Custom 1: Eat ice
On the day before Laba Festival, people usually scoop water into a steel basin to freeze, and when it comes to Laba Festival, they will take off the basin of ice and break it into pieces. It is said that the ice on this day is magical, and eating it will not cause a stomachache in the next year.
Custom 2: Eat Laba porridge
Laba porridge is also called "Qibao Wuwei porridge". China has a history of drinking Laba porridge for more than 1 years. It first began in the Song Dynasty. On the day of Laba, whether it's the imperial court, the government, the temple or the people's house of Limin, Laba porridge will be cooked. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of drinking Laba porridge was even more popular. At court, emperors, queens and princes all give laba porridge to ministers of civil and military affairs and attendants, and distribute rice and fruits to monasteries for monks to eat. In the folk, every household should also make Laba porridge to worship their ancestors; At the same time, family groups get together to eat and give gifts to relatives and friends.
there are many varieties of laba porridge in China. Among them, Beiping is the most exquisite, and there are many items mixed in white rice, such as red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, longan, hazelnuts, grapes, ginkgo, water chestnut, moss, roses, red beans, peanuts, etc., totaling no less than twenty kinds. On the night of the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, people began to get busy, washing rice, soaking fruits, peeling, removing stones, picking carefully, then starting to cook in the middle of the night, and then stewing with low fire until the next morning, when Laba porridge was cooked.
For a more exquisite family, the fruit should be carved into human shapes, animals and patterns first, and then boiled in a pot. More distinctive is to put "fruit lion" in Laba porridge. Fruit lion is a lion made of several kinds of fruits, with crisp dates peeled and dried as the lion's body, half walnut kernel as the lion's head, peach kernel as the lion's foot and sweet almond as the lion's tail. Then stick them together with sugar and put them in a porridge bowl, just like a little lion. If the bowl is bigger, you can put two lions or four little lions on it. More exquisite, it is to use jujube paste, bean paste, yam, hawthorn cake and other foods with various colors to knead them into statues of the Eight Immortals, longevity stars and arhats. This kind of decorative Laba porridge can only be seen on the altar of the former big temple.
Meat Laba porridge:
1. Boil potatoes and millet in 12kg, mash garlic in 2kg, and mix with Zhaofu brand original butter
2. Add wax gourd slices in 35kg shredded Chinese cabbage in 25kg shredded green pepper in 15kg minced chicken in
3. Add appropriate amount of water and seasonings: monosodium glutamate, salt, yellow wine, pepper, etc. and cook them with slow fire < Repeat it for about three times to get the
custom 3: Eat Laba garlic
From the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the atmosphere of the New Year is getting worse every day. In most parts of North China, the custom of soaking garlic with vinegar is called Laba garlic.
According to the old man, the word "Laba garlic" is homophonic with the word "calculate", which means that each firm should collect accounts on this day and calculate the income and expenditure of this year, so that it can be seen that the profit and loss, including foreign debts and foreign debts, should be calculated clearly on this day, and this is what "Laba calculate" is all about. The creditor who wants to pay debts on Laba's day will send a message to the people who owe him money, and he should be prepared to pay back the money. There is a folk proverb in Beijing: "Laba porridge, Laba garlic, the messenger who pays the bill;" Pay back the debt. " Later, if someone owed money to others, garlic was used instead of the word "calculate" to show taboo, and the word "calculate" was avoided. In fact, what was owed to others was to be paid back after all. Old Beijing is approaching the New Year's Pass. There are spicy dishes in the streets and alleys, but there are no laba garlic sellers. Why is this? Think about it. You have to shout when selling Laba garlic. How? Directly shout "Laba garlic!" The debtor's heart thumped when he heard the shouting. How come there are still shouts of debt collection in the street! Besides, who are you talking to as a small businessman? It's good that people don't count with you, so Laba garlic can't go down to the street and yell. All households make Laba garlic by themselves, and calculate for themselves first, how to spend this year.
purple garlic and rice vinegar are used to soak Laba garlic. Peel the garlic cloves, soak them in rice vinegar, put them in a small jar and seal them until New Year's Eve. The garlic cloves are bright green and fragrant with garlic and spicy acetic acid, which is the best seasoning for eating jiaozi and can also be used with cold dishes. It has a unique taste.
why do you have to use purple garlic for pickled laba garlic? The purple garlic cloves are soaked thoroughly, the garlic cloves are hard to collapse, and the garlic is crispy. In recent years, purple garlic is rare in the market. Use ordinary garlic, soak it out, although the petals are big, but the taste is not crisp and purple. What about garlic growers? Purple garlic has a low yield, which is 2% less than ordinary garlic. Who will plant it? Purple garlic is occasionally seen in the market, and it will be listed after wheat harvest, and the price is one-third higher than that of ordinary garlic. Isn't this the same? The harvest is small, so it may fetch a good price!
why do you have to use rice vinegar to soak laba garlic? Rice vinegar is light in color, the color of soaked garlic is the same as before, orange is yellow and green, the taste is sour and spicy, and the aroma is strong and slightly sweet. The color of the garlic soaked in the old vinegar is black, the garlic cloves are not green enough, and the taste is poor, especially the smoked vinegar, which is slightly burnt. Perhaps this is its characteristic. In fact, it is just a habit. It is better to eat delicious than to love it!
Laba porridge food custom
On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Laba, as a folk custom, was the first festival before the Spring Festival, and since then, the "taste of the year" has become increasingly rich. The custom of eating Laba porridge has been in China for thousands of years, and it has a different origin.
According to legend, in the northern part of ancient India, that is, the southern part of Nepal today, there was a king of suddhodana, who had a son named Gautama Siddhartha. When he was young, he felt painful about all kinds of troubles of life, old age, illness and death, found that social life was futile, and was extremely dissatisfied with the theocracy of Brahmanism. So at the age of 29, he abandoned the luxurious life of the royal family and became a monk. According to history, this day is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in China. Because he is a Sakyamuni, Buddhists later addressed him as Sakyamuni, which means the Sage of Sakyamuni. After Buddhism was introduced into China, monasteries were built in various places, and the activity of cooking porridge to worship Buddha became popular, especially on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, when Sakyamuni was sacrificed to practice Buddhism, all monasteries held chanting, and imitated the legendary program of offering a kind of "chyle" before Buddhism became Buddhism, and cooked porridge to worship Buddha. This is the origin of Laba porridge.
in the song dynasty, Wu zimu wrote the dream beam record for six years: "on the eighth day, the temple was called Laba.". Dasha Temple and other places have five-flavored porridge, which is called' Laba porridge'. " At this time, laba porridge has become a folk custom, but at that time, the emperor also used it to win over all the ministers. Guo Sun, a native of the Yuan Dynasty, wrote a story about a visit to Yan Dou: "On December 8th, Baiguan porridge was given, which was mixed with rice and fruit. Those who have more goods win, and this story follows the story of the Song Dynasty. " "Yongle Dadian" records that "it is the eighth day of the month, and the Zen family calls it the Laba Day, cooking bad porridge for the Buddha to eat." On the eighth day of December, seven treasures and five flavors porridge, namely "Laba porridge", are sent to the major monasteries in Kaifeng, Tokyo. According to Meng Yuanlao's Tokyo Dream of China Record, on the eighth day of December, various monasteries sent seven treasures and five flavors porridge for disciples to drink, which was called Laba porridge, also known as Buddha porridge. Lu You, a great poet in the Song Dynasty, said in his poem: "At present, Buddha porridge is more mutually reinforcing, and it is thought that Jiangcun saves new things." It's also about Laba sending porridge. Scholars in the Southern Song Dynasty carefully wrote "Old Wulin Stories", saying: "It is called Laba porridge to make porridge with walnuts, pine nuts, milk, persimmons and chestnuts."
in the Qing dynasty, in the third year of Yongzheng (ad 1725), sejong changed the mansion east of imperial academy in Beijing's Andingmen into the Lama Temple. On the eighth day of the Laba, in the Wanfuge and other places in the palace, laba porridge was cooked in a pot and lamas were invited to recite the scriptures, and then the porridge was distributed to the palace ministers for tasting. "The Records of Shuntian Mansion in Guangxu" goes: "On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Yonghe officials cook porridge, customize it, send ministers to monitor it, and cover it for dinner." Laba porridge is also called "Qibao porridge" and "Wuwei porridge". The earliest Laba porridge was cooked by adzuki beans, and it was gradually enriched by evolution and local characteristics. Fucha Dunchong, a Qing dynasty man, said in "A Chronicle of Yanjing's Age" that "Laba porridge is cooked with yellow rice, white rice, glutinous rice, millet, water chestnut, peeled jujube paste, etc., and dyed with red peach kernels, almonds, melon seeds, peanuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, white sugar, brown sugar and miscellaneous grapes for topical use".
People in Tianjin cook Laba porridge, which is similar to that in Beijing, with lotus seeds, lilies, pearl rice, Yirenmi, barley kernels, sticky glutinous rice, sticky yellow rice, kidney beans, mung beans, longan pulp, longan pulp, ginkgo, red dates and sweet-scented osmanthus in syrup, etc., which are all good in color, fragrance and taste. In recent years, black rice has been added. This Laba porridge can be used for dietotherapy, and has the effects of invigorating spleen, stimulating appetite, invigorating qi, calming the nerves, clearing away heart fire and nourishing blood.
Laba porridge in Shanxi, also known as Babao porridge, is mainly made of millet, with cowpea, adzuki bean, mung bean and jujube as well as sticky yellow rice, rice and glutinous rice. In southeastern Shanxi, it is also one of the food customs to cook porridge with water, which is called sweet rice, that is, adzuki beans, red beans, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, peanuts, glutinous rice and persimmon on the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month.
northern Shaanxi