My hometown is in Minqin County, a small county in northern Gansu Province. Laba also enjoys porridge here, but there are also Laba noodles with unique local characteristics!

Laba porridge and laba noodles in my hometown have both northern characteristics and southern porridge flavor! This is directly related to the history of my hometown Minqin County.

Before the Qing Dynasty, this place was called Tsunozawa, which was not suitable for human survival at all, only the troops guarding the frontier. At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the water level dropped, and the Hu people began to invade from here, so that a large number of troops came into being, merchants came to and from Inner Mongolia, and later many "unemployed people" and some "prisoners" who just needed "labor reform" came from Shaanxi, Sichuan and Jiangsu, so the living customs and culture of their hometown were diversified and integrated with the north and the south. Laba drinks porridge and eats Laba noodles, which is a representative example.

Laba porridge:

The traditional production technology of Laba porridge in my hometown is similar to that in the whole country, but the materials are all from the north, mainly including: wheat, highland barley, mung beans, corn, soybeans, peanuts and so on.

Due to the climatic characteristics of the desert in the north, this coarse cereal crop has a long growth cycle, so it tastes better than those in other places. This is also one of the main reasons why the quality of spring wheat flour in the north is better than that of winter wheat flour.

Laba surface:

Laba noodles are different from noodles eaten in peacetime. They are relatively wide, about four or five centimeters wide and about ten centimeters long! There are rectangular and diamond shapes.

As for why it is so wide, it is said that the original living conditions are poor, basically relying on the weather to eat, Laba eats wide noodles, indicating or looking forward to seeing a bumper harvest of food!

1, vegetarian laba noodles.

To truly talk about folk characteristics, of course, it is necessary to count the vegetarian Laba noodles.

The practice is to put laba porridge under the noodles, which requires the cook to master the technology of making noodles skillfully, otherwise the noodles will be unfamiliar or the porridge will be pasted on the pot!

Now the only people who can make Laba noodles well are the elderly over 60 years old in the village! As a local life, I haven't eaten authentic Minqin Laba noodles for nearly ten years!

2, dizzy Laba eight sides.

One is to put the fried mutton and meat directly into the vegetarian laba noodles. This is even more technical!

The other is similar to the noodles with minced meat in the north. First, make the minced meat, and then add the minced meat to the cooked noodles. However, this kind of noodles is a bit like Lamian Noodles, longer, and more like Shaanxi's belt noodles. The difference is that the belt noodles are pulled in a row (a bit like the current beef noodles), while the laba noodles are mixed first, then pushed with a flour stick and then cut.

The traditional way of eating is actually more particular. I only remember when I was very young, when I was eating Laba noodles, my mother would first sing a folk song with us:

Laba Laba freezes the master's next (local pronunciation ha) bar.

Mai (local pronunciation reading me) sub-lay (ha)

There are many cattle and sheep (ha)

……

Alas, I forgot everything else, and each small town has different singing methods and different contents. However, from these words, we can also see that Laba actually celebrates the harvest and prays for happiness!

After singing, first give each of us a small bowl with half a bowl of Laba noodles, and "pour some" at each door (to a small amount of porridge and noodles in every place). Grandparents said that on the day of Laba, the temperature was low, and all ancestors would come to the door to eat. If they were too hungry, they might directly stand at the door to visit, so they should "pour some water" at every door, otherwise the ancestors would not eat, and they would not get the New Year ...

These customs only reflect the poor natural conditions at that time, and we didn't eat much. Every festival, we should first worship our ancestors and share them with our ancestors! This is also the same as the Spring Festival sacrifice, for all food to worship the ancestors-people who don't look forward to digging wells! Pray-just hope to see a good harvest! Happy birthday! !

Finally, I hope you will come to your hometown as a guest. It is surrounded by desert on three sides. It is windy and rainy all the year round, with sweet fruits and fragrant pasta! There are many wild vegetables with desert characteristics in autumn and rainy season!

Circles are arable farmland; The arrows are two roads leading to the outside. The upper one leads to Inner Mongolia, and you can drive directly to Beijing. The lower one connects to Lanxin Line.