Laba porridge: The traditional practice of Laba porridge is to pick up and wash barley rice, white bean, red bean and mung bean, cook them half-cooked, then add rice, millet and yellow rice, and then cook them with slow fire, so that the porridge is moderately thick, and add sugar when eating, and mix them with pre-cooked red dates and chestnuts. There are so many items on the market today that it is not difficult to find all these materials, but how many people will understand and have the patience to follow these traditional practices to cook porridge? It's hard to remember that it was Laba that day, and to buy a bag of prepared porridge and cook it in a pressure cooker.

Generally, it consists of peanuts, dates, almonds, walnuts, chestnuts, lotus seeds, lilies, longan meat, raisins and various kinds of rice and beans.

Tianjin people cook Laba porridge, which is similar to Beijing, and lotus seeds, lilies, pearl rice and beans are added to pay attention to it. In recent years, black rice has been added. This Laba porridge can be used for dietotherapy, and has the effects of invigorating spleen, stimulating appetite, invigorating qi, calming the nerves, clearing away heart fire and nourishing blood.

Laba porridge in Shanxi, also known as Babao porridge, is mainly made of millet, with cowpea, adzuki bean, mung bean and jujube as well as sticky yellow rice, rice and glutinous rice. In southeastern Shanxi, it is also one of the food customs to cook porridge with water, which is called sweet rice, that is, adzuki beans, red beans, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, peanuts, glutinous rice and persimmon on the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month.

On the day of Laba in the northern Shaanxi Plateau, porridge is cooked with a variety of dried fruits, tofu and meat in addition to rice and beans. Usually cooked in the morning, sweet or salty, depending on people's taste. If it's lunch, we should cook some noodles in the porridge and have a family reunion dinner. After eating, you should also put porridge on the door, the stove and the trees outside the door to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters and welcome the bumper agricultural harvest in the coming year. According to folk legend, Laba is forbidden to eat vegetables on this day, 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 increase diced meat, tofu and radish, and also adds seasonings. On Laba Day, people not only eat Laba porridge, but also worship ancestors and granaries with porridge.

Gansu people traditionally cook Laba porridge with grains and vegetables, which are not only eaten by family members, but also distributed to neighbors and fed to livestock. In the urban areas of Lanzhou and Baiyin, Laba porridge is cooked with rice, beans, red dates, ginkgo, lotus seeds, raisins, dried apricots, dried melons, walnuts, shredded green beans, sugar and diced meat. After cooking, it is first used to worship the door god, kitchen god, earth god and god of wealth, and pray for good weather and good harvests in the coming year; Then give it to the neighbors and enjoy it for the last family. Wuwei, Gansu pays attention to "Su Laba", eating rice thick rice, lentil rice or thick rice, and eating it with fried seeds and twist after cooking. Folklore calls it "bean porridge soaked".

People in Ningxia usually cook porridge with lentils, soybeans, red beans, broad beans, black beans, rice and potatoes, and add "wheat ears" cut into rhombic willow leaves with wheat flour or buckwheat flour, or "sparrow heads" made into small round eggs, and then add chopped green onion oil before cooking. On this day, the whole family only ate laba rice, not vegetables.

Although most Xining people in Qinghai are Han people, Laba does not eat porridge, but eats wheat kernel rice. Boil the freshly ground wheat kernels with beef and mutton, add green salt, ginger skin, pepper, tsaoko, Miao Xiang and other condiments, and after a night of slow fire, the meat and wheat blend into a milky shape. When the pot is uncovered in the morning, it smells delicious.

In the "Confucius Food System" in Shandong Province, it is stipulated that there are two kinds of "Laba porridge". One kind is cooked with rice kernels, longan, lotus seeds, lilies, chestnuts, red dates and japonica rice, and some "porridge fruits" are added to the bowl, mainly carved into fruits of various shapes for ornament. This kind of porridge is specially for the master of Confucius and the master of the Twelve Houses. The other is cooked with rice, sliced meat, cabbage, tofu, etc., which is for the servants in Confucius' house to drink.

People in Henan eat laba rice, which is cooked with eight kinds of raw materials, such as millet, mung bean, cowpea, wheat kernel, peanut, red date and corn. When cooked, add some brown sugar and walnut kernel to make the porridge thick and fragrant, which means a bumper harvest in the coming year.

there are two kinds of laba porridge in Jiangsu, sweet and salty, and the cooking method is the same. It's just that salty porridge is served with vegetables and oil. Suzhou people should add arrowheads, water chestnuts, walnuts, pine nuts, Gordon Euryale seeds, red dates, chestnuts, fungus, vegetables, Flammulina velutipes and so on when cooking Laba porridge. 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 was spread from the kingdom of Brahma, and the seven treasures were beautifully blended and the five flavors were mixed."

Zhejiang people usually cook Laba porridge with walnut kernel, pine nuts, Gordon Euryale seeds, lotus seeds, red dates, longan meat, lychee meat, etc., which is sweet and delicious, and they pray for a long life. It is said that this porridge cooking method was spread from Nanjing, which contains some legends.

There are many people in Sichuan. Laba porridge is made in a variety of ways, sweet, salty and spicy, while rural people eat more salty porridge, which is mainly made of 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, there are many people in cities who eat sweet porridge, which can be called different flavors. Laba is closely related to porridge, and porridge is drunk in Laba, which can be regarded as a fancy and a level.