The Origin and Legend of Laba Festival
"Shuowen" contains: "Three days after the winter, La Worship will be guarded by 100 gods." It can be seen that the third garrison day after the winter solstice is the twelfth month. Later, due to the intervention of Buddhism, the twelfth lunar month was changed to the eighth day of December, and it has since become a custom.
Why is the end of a year called "pull"? There are three meanings: first, "the puller, Ye Jie", which means the alternation of the old and the new (recorded in the Book of Rites of Sui Shu); The second is "wax hunters hunt together", which means that hunting in the wild can make animals sacrifice their ancestors and gods. "wax" comes from "meat", which means meat for "winter sacrifice"; Three yue "wax, chasing the epidemic to welcome the spring", ("Jingchu Sui"). Laba Festival is also called "Buddhist Enlightenment Festival" and "Enlightenment Meeting". In fact, it can be said that the eighth day of December is the origin of Laba Festival. According to legend, Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, practiced in the mountains and sat quietly for six years. He was so hungry that he wanted to give up the pain. He happened to meet a shepherdess and gave him chyle. After eating, he sat cross-legged under the bodhi tree, became a Buddha in early December, and started the "Buddhist and Taoist Festival" to commemorate it. Believers in China are very devout, so they merged with "La Ri" to form the "Laba Festival" and held a grand ceremony.
On Laba Festival, most people drink Laba porridge. There are many stories about the origin of drinking Laba porridge.
On the other hand, in the Western Jin Dynasty, there was a very lazy young man. He always idled around and ate nothing. His bride repeatedly advised him to be ineffective. However, by the eighth day of December at the end of the year, his family had stopped cooking and the young man was hungry. He searched the rice jars, flour bags, pots and pans at home, washed the leftover powder and edible leftovers into the pot and cooked a bowl of mushy porridge to drink. After that, he drank it. The local people take this opportunity to educate their children to cook porridge every Laba, which not only means that they will not forget the virtues of their ancestors' diligence and thrift on Laba, but also hopes that the gods will bring a good year of plenty of food and clothing.
On the other hand, Yue Fei was framed by treacherous court officials and detained for commissary. When the people heard the news, every household sent porridge and rice, and Yue Jun mixed it. This day happens to be the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. After this day, people will cook Laba porridge and miss Yue Fei and Yue Jiajun. Laba porridge was the most popular in Song Dynasty. No matter the court, the government, the temples and the people's homes, they are all vying to cook Laba porridge. "Old Wulin Stories" said: "On December 8, people in the temple made porridge with walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmons and chestnuts, which was called Laba porridge." Also called "five-flavor porridge" or "eight-treasure porridge".
It is also said that when Zhu Yuanzhang was a child, he tended sheep to the rich man and often went hungry. One day, he found a mouse hole in his room and wanted to catch a mouse and cook it to satisfy his hunger. He reached into the depths and found that there were grains piled up by mice such as rice, corn and beans. He cooked these miscellaneous grains into a pot of porridge, which tasted sweet. Later, when he became an emperor, he was tired of eating delicacies. On this day, Laba remembered a pot of miscellaneous grains porridge, and ordered the chef to cook and eat miscellaneous grains, and named it "Laba porridge".
Diet custom of Laba Festival
There are many records about La Worship in ancient books: "December 8th is the twelfth month. The villagers also play drums and grow beards as a powerful force to drive away the epidemic. " During the Tang and Song Dynasties, this festival was painted with the color of Buddha. According to legend, before Sakyamuni became a Buddha, he never thought about asceticism and lost his head with hunger. A shepherdess saved her by mixing wild fruits with miscellaneous grains and cooking porridge with clear spring. Sakyamuni pondered under the bodhi tree and finally became a Buddha on1February 8. Since then, Buddhism has designated this day as "Buddhism and Taoism Day", and chanting to commemorate it has become a festival. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, worshipping gods and buddhas replaced ancestor worship, celebrating harvest and expelling epidemic disasters, which became the main theme of Laba Festival. Its holiday customs are mainly cooking, giving people away, tasting Laba porridge and holding a cool breeze. At the same time, many people have been eager to celebrate the Spring Festival since then, busy killing pigs, making tofu, making wind fish and bacon with glue, and purchasing new year's goods. The atmosphere of "Nian" gradually became stronger.
Laba porridge, also known as Wuwei porridge, Qibao porridge, chyle porridge, fragrant porridge, Buddha porridge or longevity porridge, consists of various kinds of rice (glutinous rice, rice, corn, yellow rice, sorghum rice and black rice), various kinds of beans (kidney beans, red beans, mung beans, soybeans, cowpeas and lentils) and various kinds of dried fruits (jujubes and chestnuts). It is mainly provided to Buddhists and believers at the "Buddha Bath Club", but also distributed to relatives and friends, good men and women, and given to the poor and refugees. During the spread of this kind of porridge, more than 100 recipes appeared everywhere, showing the wisdom of working people and their tireless pursuit of food.
Here are some famous formulas:
The recipe recorded in "Chicken Ribs" reads: "On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in Ningzhou (now Fuxian County, Liaoning Province), people actually made rice porridge and painted it with colors such as forest chestnuts as flowers and birds, and even gave it a legacy."
The recipe recorded in The Legend of Wulin: "The temples and people in Hangzhou make porridge with walnuts, pine nuts and persimmon chestnuts, which is called Laba porridge."
The recipe recorded in Jin Ping Mei: "There are all kinds of hazelnuts, pine nuts, chestnuts, nuts, plums and white sugar porridge in japonica rice."
The recipe recorded in the History of the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty: "A few days ago (in the Forbidden City in the Ming Dynasty), red dates were mashed and soaked, and on the eighth day of August, glutinous rice, ginkgo, walnut kernels, chestnuts and rice were added to cook porridge for the Buddha, and the cooked porridge was placed in the house, garden trees and well stoves."
The recipe recorded in Jia Qinglu: "(Suzhou) residents cook porridge with vegetables and fruits and mix it with Laba porridge; Or there are monks and nuns in debt, called Buddha porridge. "
The menu in A Dream of Red Mansions: colorful Mi Dou, five kinds of fruits and vegetables (red dates, chestnuts, peanuts, Mongolian medicine and taro).
The recipe recorded in Yanjing Chronicle: "(Beijing) Laba porridge is boiled with yellow rice, white rice, glutinous rice, millet, water chestnut rice, chestnuts, red Jiang Dou and jujube paste for external use.