The origin of Laba porridge

As the saying goes: when Laba arrives, porridge is fragrant. "Drinking Laba porridge" is the mainstream custom of this festival. People believe that only drinking a bowl of hot Laba porridge on this day is the perfect ending to last year. So do you know the origin of Laba porridge? Interested friends come and have a look.

The origin of Laba porridge

The custom of drinking Laba porridge on Laba Festival comes from Buddhism. The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is Sakyamuni's day of enlightenment. To commemorate the Buddha's enlightenment on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, ancient Indians ate mixed porridge on this day as a commemoration. Since Buddhism was introduced to China, temples have cooked porridge with fragrant valleys and fruits and distributed it to believers and loyal men and women. In the Song Dynasty, the folk gradually formed the custom of cooking and drinking porridge on Laba Festival, which has continued to this day.

According to legend, Sakyamuni is the prince of Kapilowei Kingdom in Nepal. At the age of 29, he deeply felt that the caste system of Brahmanism in India was unreasonable, and the lower classes suffered from illness and death. In order to gain consciousness and see through the truth of life, he wandered for six years. He was naked, wandering around, his hair fell off, his eyes were sunken, and his atrophied body looked like a skeleton.

He managed to support himself and came under a bodhi tree. Hungry and cold, he fainted. When a shepherdess saw that Sakyamuni was dying, she cooked a bowl of milk porridge and fed it to Sakyamuni. Sakyamuni Buddha recovered his original strength after drinking this bowl of milk porridge from the shepherdess.

He continued to sit cross-legged under the bodhi tree. At dawn, he realized the Buddha, the truth of life and the truth of the universe. The date of Buddha's enlightenment is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in China, which is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. In order not to forget the suffering of the Buddha before he became a monk, but also to commemorate the enlightenment of the Buddha on the eighth day of December, ancient Indians ate mixed porridge as a commemoration on this day, which is commonly known as "Laba porridge" in China, and Laba porridge is also called Qibao Wuwei porridge, Buddha porridge and so on. Today, this trend has gradually spread to the people, and the people also cook Laba porridge on this day, which has become one of the folk customs.

Laba porridge tips

1. The general cooking method of Laba porridge is to select and clean various beans such as adzuki beans, mung beans and cowpeas, cook them until they are half cooked, and then add white rice, millet, yellow rice and glutinous rice. Boiled beans had better be soaked in advance. ?

2. If porridge is cooked in a large iron pot, the water should be added at one time. When cooking porridge, use strong fire first, and then use slow fire when the rice is about to bloom. Stir while cooking, be careful not to paste the pot. ?

Laba porridge is named Laba porridge, but it is suitable for use all year round. Although this porridge is good, it can't be eaten suddenly, and it can't exceed 1 meal a day. ?

4. If you feel that the taste is not sweet enough, after the porridge is cooked, you can add some honey or sugar as a source of sweetness when eating. ? 5. porridge should be cooked until it is soft for a long time, otherwise it will cause gastrointestinal burden to people with bad stomachs, such as red beans and glutinous rice. If cooked slowly, you can cook it first, or use a pressure cooker, and the nutrition will be better preserved.

The above is my understanding of the origin of Laba porridge. What other origins do you know?