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 you eat at noon, you should cook some noodles in the porridge, and the whole family can get together for 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
Cooking Laba porridge generally uses walnut kernel, pine nuts, Gordon Euryale seeds, lotus seeds, red dates, longan meat, litchi meat and so on. Sweet and fragrant, 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. (Fujian hotline)
Laba tofu
"Laba Tofu" is a folk specialty in Ganxian County, Anhui Province. Before Laba on the eve of the Spring Festival, that is, around the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, every household in Ganxian county will bask in tofu, which is called "Laba tofu" by the people.
Emerald Jasper Laba Garlic
Pickling Laba garlic is a custom in northern China, especially in the north. As the name implies, garlic is brewed on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. In fact, the materials are very simple, namely vinegar and garlic cloves. The method is also extremely simple. Put the peeled garlic cloves in a sealable container, such as a jar or bottle, then pour in vinegar, seal the mouth and put it in a cold place. Slowly, the garlic soaked in vinegar will turn green, and finally the whole body will turn green, like jade and jasper.
Cook "five beans"
In some places, Laba porridge is not called Laba porridge, but called Wudou. Some are made on Laba Festival, and some are made on the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month. Some "sparrow heads" are also cooked with flour, rice and beans (five kinds of beans). It is said that Laba people eat "sparrow's head", and sparrows have a headache, which will not harm crops in the coming year. This kind of boiled "five beans" is not only for eating, but also for relatives and neighbors. When you eat it every day, heat it and eat it together until the 23 rd of the twelfth lunar month, which symbolizes more than a year.
Laba noodles
In some places in northern China where little or no rice is produced, people eat laba noodles instead of laba porridge. The next day, on the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family will eat Laba noodles.