Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional festivals - Tradition is in China, why do you drink porridge on Laba Festival?

Tradition is in China, why do you drink porridge on Laba Festival?

Baidu Encyclopedia:

According to legend, before Sakyamuni became a Buddha, he never thought about asceticism and lost his head with hunger. A shepherdess saved her by mixing wild fruits with miscellaneous grains and cooking porridge with clear spring. Sakyamuni pondered under the bodhi tree and finally became a Buddha on1February 8. Since then, Buddhism has designated this day as "Buddhism and Taoism Day", and chanting to commemorate it has become a festival. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, worshipping gods and buddhas replaced ancestor worship, celebrating harvest and expelling epidemic disasters, which became the main theme of Laba Festival. Its holiday customs are mainly cooking, giving people away, tasting Laba porridge and holding a cool breeze. At the same time, many people have been eager to celebrate the Spring Festival since then, busy killing pigs, making tofu, making wind fish and bacon with glue, and purchasing new year's goods. The atmosphere of "Nian" gradually became stronger. [3]

food culture

Laba porridge

Laba has the custom of eating Laba porridge on this day. Laba porridge is also called Qibao Wuwei porridge. China has been drinking Laba porridge for more than 1000 years. It first started in the Song Dynasty. On the day of Laba, whether it is the imperial court, the government, temples, or the people's homes, Laba porridge will be cooked. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of drinking Laba porridge became more popular. At court, emperors, queens and princes give laba porridge to civil and military ministers and attendants, and distribute rice and fruit 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 members get together for dinner and give gifts to relatives and friends.

Although the ingredients of Laba porridge in different regions are different, they basically include cereals such as rice, millet, glutinous rice, sorghum rice, purple rice and coix seed, beans such as soybeans, red beans, mung beans, kidney beans and cowpeas, and dried fruits such as red dates, peanuts, lotus seeds, medlar, chestnuts, walnuts, almonds, longan, raisins and ginkgo. Laba porridge is not only a seasonal food, but also a good health care product, especially suitable for maintaining the spleen and stomach in cold weather.