The custom of Laba porridge

Laba porridge in Beijing can be said to be the most exquisite. There are many things mixed in white rice, such as red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, longan, grapes, ginkgo, moss, roses, red beans and peanuts. No fewer than 20 kinds. On the seventh night of the twelfth lunar month, people began to wash rice, soak fruits, peel and remove stones, and began to stew with low fire in the middle of the night. Laba porridge was not cooked until the next morning.

Laba Festival is in the northern Shaanxi Plateau. In addition to rice and beans, porridge also contains various dried fruits, tofu and meat. After eating, you should put porridge on the door, on the stove and on the trees outside the door to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters, so as to welcome the next year's agricultural harvest. Moreover, it is forbidden to eat vegetables on Laba.

In some places in Shaanxi where there is little or no rice production, people eat laba noodles instead of laba porridge. Make minced meat with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and roll out noodles. On the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family eats together.

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Legend of Laba porridge

The founder of Buddhism, Sakyamuni, was originally the son of Sudoku king in northern India (now Nepal). He saw that all beings were suffering physically and mentally, dissatisfied with the theocratic rule of Brahmins at that time, and gave up the throne and became a monk. After six years of asceticism, he became a Buddha under the bodhi tree on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month.

In the past six years, I have only eaten one hemp and one meter a day. Later generations did not forget his sufferings and ate porridge as a souvenir on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month every year. "Laba" became "Buddha's Day". "Laba" is a grand festival of Buddhism.

Before liberation, Buddhist temples all over the country held Buddhist baths and chanted scriptures, and imitated the legend that a herder offered chyle before Sakyamuni became a monk, and cooked fragrant cereal porridge to offer sacrifices to the Buddha, which was called "Laba porridge". Laba porridge was presented to disciples and kind men and women, and later became a folk custom.

It is said that in some monasteries, before the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, monks would hold alms bowls along the street and cook the collected rice, chestnuts, dates, nuts and other materials into Laba porridge and distribute it to the poor. Legend has it that eating it can get the blessing of Buddha, so the poor call it "Buddha porridge". The poem of Lu You in the Southern Song Dynasty said: "Today, Buddha porridge is more mutually beneficial, and the opposite is Jiangcun Village."

It is said that Tianning Temple, a famous temple in Hangzhou, has a "rice stacking building" for storing leftovers. Monks in the temple usually dry the leftovers every day, accumulate a year's surplus food, and cook Laba porridge for believers on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, which is called "Fushou porridge" and "Fude porridge", which means that eating it can increase happiness and prolong life. It can be seen that the monks at that time cherished the virtue of food.

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