Dietary customs of Laba porridge in various places
The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, called Laba by the people, is the first festival before the Spring Festival, and since then, the "annual flavor" has become increasingly rich. The custom of eating Laba porridge has a history of thousands of years in China, and it has different origins.
According to legend, in the northern part of ancient India, that is, in the southern part of Nepal today, there was a king suddhodana in Luowei, Carpil. He has a son named Gautama Siddharta. When he was young, he felt all kinds of pains of birth, illness and death. He 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 historical records, this day is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in China. Because he was Sakyamuni, Buddhists later called him Sakyamuni, which means Sakyamuni's saint. After Buddhism was introduced into China, monasteries were built everywhere, and the activity of cooking porridge to worship Buddha became popular. Especially on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, when Sakyamuni offered sacrifices to cultivate Buddha, all monasteries held chanting, and imitated the legendary program of offering a kind of "chyle" before Buddhism became a Buddha, and cooked porridge to worship Buddha. This is the origin of Laba porridge.
In the Song Dynasty, Wu wrote Meng Lianglu for six years: "The eighth day, the temple name is 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 ministers. Guo Sun, a native of Yuan Dynasty, wrote a story about his visit to Yan Dou: "On December 8th, Guanbai porridge was sent, which was mixed with rice and fruit. 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, which the Zen family calls Laba Festival, and the porridge is cooked for the Buddha." In the third year of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty (A.D. 1725), Sejong changed the mansion east of imperial academy in Andingmen, Beijing into the Lama Temple. Laba, in Wanfuge and other places in the palace, cooked Laba porridge in a pot and asked lamas and monks to recite scriptures, and then distributed the porridge to palace ministers for tasting for the festival. "Guangxu Shuntian Mansion Records" says: "On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Yonghe officials cooked porridge, customized it, sent ministers to supervise it, and covered the rice." Laba porridge is also called "Qibao porridge" and "Wuwei porridge". The earliest Laba porridge was boiled with adzuki beans, which gradually enriched through evolution and local characteristics. The Southern Song Dynasty scholar's "Old Wulin Stories" said: "Cooking porridge with walnuts, pine nuts, milk, persimmons and chestnuts is called Laba porridge." Fu Cha Dunchong, a Qing Dynasty man, said in the Chronicle of Yanjing Age: "Laba porridge is made of yellow rice, white rice, glutinous rice, millet, water chestnut and peeled jujube paste. And dyed with red peach kernels, almonds, melon seeds, peanuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, white sugar, brown sugar and miscellaneous grapes for external use. "
Tianjin people cook Laba porridge, which is similar to Beijing's, including lotus seeds, lilies, pearl rice, Italian glutinous rice, barley kernels, sticky glutinous rice, sticky yellow rice, beans, mung beans, longan meat, ginkgo, red dates, sweet-scented osmanthus in syrup and so on. They are all good in color, smell and taste. In recent years, black rice has been added. The Laba porridge can be used for dietotherapy, and has the effects of invigorating spleen, stimulating appetite, invigorating qi, calming nerves, clearing away heart fire and nourishing blood.
Laba porridge in Shanxi, also known as eight-treasure porridge, is mainly millet, with cowpea, adzuki bean, mung bean, jujube, sticky yellow rice, rice and glutinous rice. In southeastern Shanxi, cooking porridge with water is also one of the eating customs. This kind of porridge is called fragrant rice, which means adzuki beans, red beans, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, peanuts, glutinous rice and persimmons on the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month.
On the day of Laba in the northern Shaanxi Plateau, besides all kinds of rice and beans, porridge is cooked with all kinds of dried fruits, tofu and meat. Usually cooked in the morning, sweet and salty, depending on people's tastes. If it is lunch, we should cook some noodles in porridge and have a reunion dinner. 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. According to folklore, it is forbidden to eat vegetables on Laba, saying that there are many weeds in the field after eating Lai crops. Laba people in southern Shaanxi want to eat mixed porridge, which is divided into "five flavors" and "eight flavors" The former is cooked with rice, glutinous rice, peanuts, ginkgo and beans. The latter uses the above five raw materials to add diced meat, tofu, radish and seasonings. On Laba Festival, people not only eat Laba porridge, but also worship their ancestors and granaries with porridge.
Gansu people have traditionally cooked Laba porridge with whole grains and vegetables. After cooking, it is not only for family members to eat, but also distributed to neighbors to feed livestock. In Lanzhou and Baiyin urban areas, Laba porridge is made of rice, beans, red dates, ginkgo, lotus seeds, raisins, dried apricots, dried wax gourd, walnuts, shredded mung beans, sugar and diced meat. After cooking, it is first used to worship the door god, the kitchen god, the land god and the god of wealth, and pray for good weather and good harvests in the coming year; Then give it to the neighbors and give it to the last family. Wuwei, Gansu pays attention to "Sulaba", eating coarse rice, lentil rice or coarse rice, cooked with fried seeds and twist. Folk call it "bean porridge bubble".
People in Ningxia usually cook porridge with lentils, soybeans, red beans, broad beans, black beans, rice and potatoes as laba rice, and add wheat flour or buckwheat flour to the "ears of wheat" cut into rhombic willow leaves, or make them into "sparrows' heads" of small round eggs, and then add chopped green onion oil for cooking. On this day, the whole family only eats laba rice, not vegetables.
Most people in Xining, Qinghai are Han people, but Laba doesn't eat porridge, but eats wheat kernel rice. Boil freshly ground wheat with beef and mutton, add green salt, ginger peel, pepper, tsaoko, Miao Xiang and other condiments, and after a night of slow fire, the meat and wheat merge into a milky white shape. Boil the pot in the morning, and the smell is fragrant.
In the "Confucius Food System" in Shandong Province, there are two kinds of "Laba porridge". One is made of rice kernels, longan, lotus seeds, lilies, chestnuts, red dates, japonica rice, etc. There are also some "porridge fruits" added to the bowl, mainly because the fruits are carved into various shapes for ornament. This kind of porridge is specially for Confucius' master and the master of the zodiac. The other is cooked with rice, sliced meat, cabbage and tofu. , is for the servants in Confucius.
People in Henan eat laba rice, which is made of eight kinds of raw materials, such as millet, mung bean, cowpea, wheat kernel, peanut, red dates and corn. When cooking, add some brown sugar and walnuts to make the porridge thick and fragrant, which means a bumper harvest in the coming year.
Eating Laba porridge in Jiangsu is divided into sweet and salty, and the cooking method is the same. It's just that salty porridge is served with vegetables and oil. Suzhou people cook Laba porridge with arrowheads, water chestnuts, walnuts, pine nuts, euryales, red dates, chestnuts, fungus, vegetables, Flammulina velutipes and so on. Li Fu, a scholar in Suzhou in the Qing Dynasty, once wrote a poem: "The porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month came from Brahma, and the seven treasures blended beautifully with mixed flavors."
Zhejiang people usually cook Laba porridge with walnut kernel, pine nuts, Gordon Euryale seeds, lotus seeds, red dates, longan meat and litchi meat. Sweet and delicious, pray for a long life. It is said that this method of cooking porridge came from Nanjing, which contains some legends.
There are many people in Sichuan. Laba porridge is made in a variety of ways, including sweet, salty and spicy. Rural people eat salty porridge, mainly soybeans, peanuts, diced meat, white radish and carrots. Strangers come here to taste, although do as the Romans do, but it is difficult to get used to it. Nowadays, many people in the city eat sweet porridge, which can be called unique flavor. Laba is closely related to porridge. Drinking porridge in Laba is also a fancy and a level.
There are some scientific reasons why people in China love Laba porridge so much, besides eating customs. The porridge spectrum written by Cao Yanshan, a nutritionist in the Qing Dynasty, has a detailed and clear record of the fitness and nutritional functions of Laba porridge. Laba porridge has the functions of harmonizing stomach and strengthening spleen, nourishing heart and clearing lung, benefiting kidney and liver, quenching thirst, improving eyesight, relaxing bowels and calming the nerves, and is a good food therapy. These have been confirmed by modern medicine. Laba porridge is also a good food for the elderly, but we should also be careful not to drink too much. In fact, it's not just Laba, but also the porridge for the elderly. There are quite a few varieties of porridge, which can vary from person to person. You can choose it according to your needs and eat it as appropriate.
Practice of Laba porridge
(material)
Peanut: 40g, soybean: 40g, Coicis Semen: 40g, red beans: 40g, red dates: 6-8, lotus seeds:15g, longan pulp: 30g, sugar:12 cups, water: 10 cups.
(practice):
① Wash peanuts, soybeans, coix seed and red beans and soak them in clear water for 4*6 hours. ② Add 10 cup of water to the pot and cook the beans until they are soft and cooked. ③ Wash glutinous rice, add red dates and cook for about 25 minutes. Add the cooked beans and longan and cook for about 20 minutes. Boil with sugar and turn on the fire.
Practice of Laba porridge
Ingredients: glutinous rice 1 cup, adzuki bean100g, raisins, peanuts and lotus seeds 50g each, red dates, longan and pine nuts 50g each, and sugar 300g. Methods: 1. Wash glutinous rice and soak it for one night. Wash adzuki beans and soak for about 4 hours. 2. Put adzuki bean, lotus seed and peanut kernel into the inner pot, add 6 cups of tobacco leaf water, move into the electric pot, add 1 cup of water into the outer pot, and steam until the switch is switched off; Add glutinous rice, add 1 cup of water to the outer pot, and continue steaming until the switch jumps; Add red dates and dried longan, heat half a cup of water in an outer pot, continue steaming until the switch jumps, and then add 300 grams of pine nuts, raisins and sugar.
How to make two kinds of Laba porridge?
● Sweet Laba porridge
Raw materials: sweet potato, mung bean, millet, rice, glutinous rice, peanuts, red beans and red dates.
Production process:
1. Wash red dates, peel and cut sweet potatoes, and wash other raw materials for later use.
2. Add water to the pot to boil, add eight kinds of raw materials and simmer together until crisp and soft, and the soup is thick.
Features: Soft and sweet, rich in nutrition.
Tips:
1. The ratio of water to raw materials should be appropriate.
2. When cooking porridge, put the raw materials in water and stir them constantly with a spoon to avoid burning the pot.
● Salted Laba porridge
Raw materials: rice, peanuts, ginkgo, pine nuts, millet, lean pork, lily, almond, coriander, onion and ginger.
Seasoning: refined salt, cooking wine, monosodium glutamate, pepper, sesame oil and broth.
Production process:
1. Dice lean meat, wash raw materials such as rice, slice onion and ginger, wash coriander and cut into powder.
2. Boil the soup in the pot, put all kinds of raw materials together until the juice is thick, add seasoning, sprinkle with coriander and serve.
Features: fresh, salty and delicious, rich in nutrition.
Tips:
1. Don't have too much lean meat and ingredients, mainly rice.
This porridge should not be too salty, and the concentration should be appropriate.
Ingredients: appropriate amount of rice, 2 carrots, 2 smoked slices, green bamboo shoots 1 piece, 7 mushrooms 7- 10/piece, a little fungus, half a catty of pork stuffing and 5-8 shrimps. Ingredients: a little refined salt.
1. Wash the rice first, put it in a casserole, add water, and then simmer. If there is no casserole, you can use ordinary iron pots and aluminum pot instead. Don't add too little water, only six or seven tenths will overflow the pot.
2. Put the pork stuffing into the pot, boil the pot and skim off the foam. Try to choose thinner pork stuffing.
3. Wash the shrimps and put them in the pot.
4. Cut the mushrooms soaked in advance into small squares of about 3 mm, and then chop the soaked fungus and pour it into the pot.
5. Cut the carrot into small dices of about 3 mm and put it in the pot. Carrots should be small and tender, without hard stones in the middle.
6./kloc-after 0/5 minutes, dry and cut into 3mm cubes, and put them in the pot.
7. 10 minutes later, cut the green bamboo shoots into 3mm dices and put them in the pot.
8. Stir porridge frequently during the period to avoid sticking to the pot. You can also add some water according to the situation (because you put so many things, the porridge will become very thick, of course, if you like to drink thicker porridge).
After 9.30 minutes, add a little salt and serve.
The above can eat about 3-4 people, each with about 3-4 bowls.
This Laba porridge is rich in flavor and beautiful in color. There are ruddy carrots, black mushrooms and fungus, smoked brown and green bamboo shoots, which can be described as delicious. In the cold winter, the family drank a bowl of Laba porridge and served a few side dishes around the TV, which was very warm.