2. Since the pre-Qin period, Laba Festival has been used to worship ancestors and gods and pray for good harvest and good luck. It is said that Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, realized enlightenment on the eighth day of December, so Laba is also a Buddhist festival, called "Buddhist Enlightenment Festival".
Laba has the custom of eating Laba porridge on this day. Laba porridge is also called "Qibao Wuwei porridge". China has a history of drinking Laba porridge for 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. There are many kinds of Laba porridge in China. Among them, Beiping is the most exquisite, and there are many items mixed in white rice, including red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, longan, hazelnuts, grapes, ginkgo, water chestnut, moss, roses, red beans, peanuts, etc., totaling no less than 20 kinds. On the night of the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, people began to get busy, washing rice, soaking fruits, peeling, removing stones and picking carefully, then cooking in the middle of the night and stewing with low fire until Laba porridge was cooked the next morning.
4, more exquisite people, but also to carve the fruit into human shapes, animals, patterns, and then put it in a pot to cook. More distinctive is to put "fruit lion" in Laba porridge. Fruit lion is a lion made of several kinds of fruits, with peeled and dried crisp dates as the lion's body, half walnut kernel as the lion's head, peach kernel as the lion's foot and sweet almond as the lion's tail. Then stick them together with sugar and put them in a porridge bowl, just like a little lion. If the bowl is bigger, you can put two lions or four little lions on it. More exquisite, it is made of jujube paste, red bean paste, yam, hawthorn cake and other foods in various colors, and kneaded into statues of the Eight Immortals, the birthday girl, Luohan and so on. This decorative Laba porridge can only be seen on the altar of a big temple in the past.
5. After Laba porridge is cooked, we should first worship God and ancestors. After that, give it to relatives and friends, and be sure to send it out before noon. Finally, the whole family eats together. It is a good sign that the leftover Laba porridge will be preserved after eating for a few days, which means "more than one year". If you give porridge to the poor, it will be better for you.
6. Laba porridge has the function of witchcraft among the people. If there are flowers and fruit trees in the yard, put some Laba porridge on the branches. I believe it will bear more fruits next year.
7. On the day of Laba, in addition to offering sacrifices to ancestors and gods, there are also people who mourn the national subjugation and place their grief. Legend has it that the origin of Laba porridge custom was rented by Zhu Yuanzhang when he was in Ming Taizu. It is said that Zhu Yuanzhang was poor when he was a child, and his parents sent him to a rich man's house to herd cattle. The rich man treated him badly. He was often beaten and did not have enough to eat. One day, he came back with cattle on the wooden bridge. Unexpectedly, the old cow slipped, fell off the bridge and broke her leg. The old rich man was furious and put Zhu Yuanzhang in a room and refused to eat. He was so hungry that he wandered around the room looking for something to eat. Suddenly, he found a mouse hole in the room and opened it. I didn't expect it to be a granary for mice, with rice, beans and taro in it.
8. Later, when Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he was tired of eating delicious food. One day, he suddenly remembered that when he was a child, he had eaten porridge cooked by five grains and beans dug in a mouse hole, so he asked the chef to make him a sweet porridge, and all kinds of five grains and beans were mixed together. The day he ate was the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, so it was called Laba porridge. Seeing that the emperor ate Laba porridge, the officials of the civil and military in the Qing Dynasty followed suit and gradually spread it to the people, becoming a custom. Nowadays, the custom of drinking Laba porridge has gradually lost its original intention and become an entertaining and interesting way to eat. Due to different regions, the cooking methods of porridge are extremely colorful, showing strong regional characteristics.