Legend of Lapa Festival
Legend 1: Lapa Festival is the eighth day of the month of Lunar (December), originated in the Yuan Dynasty, it is said that Zhu Yuanzhang fell in the prison suffering, it was cold, cold and hungry Zhu Yuanzhang even from the prison of the rat holes to find out some red beans, rice, jujubes and other seven or eight kinds of grains and cereals. Zhu Yuanzhang these things into a porridge, because that day is the eighth day of the eighth month of the waxing moon, Zhu Yuanzhang will be beautifully named this pot of miscellaneous grain porridge for the waxing gruel. Enjoy a beautiful meal. Later, Zhu Yuanzhang pacified the world, sitting in the north towards the south as the emperor, in order to commemorate that special day in prison, he then set the day as Lahai Festival, the day he ate mixed grain congee officially named Lahai congee.
Legend 2: It is said that the founder of Buddhism, Siddhartha Gautama's day of enlightenment is also on the eighth day of the twelfth month, so the day of Laha has the custom of eating Laha congee. Siddhartha Gautama before becoming a Buddha, traveled to the mountains and rivers, looking for elders and foreigners, practicing hard, seeking life exactly. In the deserted, hot Magadha country in North India, he was tired and hungry, and finally collapsed. Shepherdess saw, busy put their own lunch - home to eat the rest of a variety of rice porridge mix of risotto, and into the mountains to pick a variety of wild fruits, heated with fire, fed Siddhartha Gautama to eat. Siddhartha Gautama ate like manna, and immediately recovered his vitality. He took a bath in the river, sat under the Bodhi tree and meditated, and on December 8, he attained great enlightenment and became a Buddha. After the Han Dynasty in China, the eighth day of the twelfth month was designated as the Lunar New Year's Day. Every to the day before the eighth day, the monks of the monastery are to take the fresh grain fruit, with clean utensils all night porridge, day into the porridge, used to worship the Buddha, and chanting performance of the law, drink "congee," to commemorate the eighth day of the month. But drinking congee is limited to monks, the people do not have this custom.
Until the Northern Song Dynasty, this custom of Buddhist influence, first in the capital city of Tokyo (Kaifeng). Every "Lunar Day", the people have copied the production of this unique Lunar congee, and gradually become the main content of the annual Tokyo Lunar Day, and ultimately socialize this monastic custom, which is clearly documented in the "Tokyo Dreaming Records": "The eighth day.... ...the great temples would make a Buddhist bath, and send seven treasures and five flavors of porridge to the disciples, called 'Laha congee'. All people are the day of each family also to fruit and miscellaneous materials to cook congee and eat." The Qing barnyard class notes "concluded that:" Laha congee, began in Song, December 8, the Tokyo temples to the seven treasures and five flavors and glutinous rice and cooked into porridge, followed to this day."
Drinking Laha congee custom in the capital city of Tokyo when the folk popular, soon spread to the Kyushu, became a major holiday customs of the Chinese nation.
Self-service kitchen
If you just want to get your hands dirty and cook for your family and friends or treat yourself to a pot of sweet and creamy Laha congee, we can teach you an easy-to-follow Laha congee making method
Laha congee can be eaten in two ways: sweet and savory. In the savory method, there are bean products, diced meat or preserved sausage. Here is the traditional sweet eating Laha congee practice. Ingredients: white glutinous rice, cinnamon, sugar; ingredients are lotus seeds, silver fungus, red dates, lily of the valley, yam, beans (green beans red beans, etc.). Practice: 1. 50 grams of glutinous rice soak for 10 minutes, add 6 cups of water, boil over high heat, change to medium-low heat and cook for 20 minutes, add cinnamon and sugar and cook for another 10 minutes to complete the bottom of the congee. 2. Add the boiled ingredients and boil again. The efficacy of the congee is many, can improve the weak body, make up for the heart and blood, but also can stop coughing and moisten the lungs, prevent constipation, skin beauty, to name a few. Diabetes, high blood fat patients can eat savory congee. Winter climate is dry, cold wind into the bones. Meat porridge is both delicious and cold, comparable to eating shabu-shabu. In addition, you can also eat more jujube porridge, corn porridge and so on. Recommended a homemade porridge production simple method: a day in advance of the evening will be rice and small beans into the warm pot, add the right amount of boiling water, the next morning can be eaten.
Another production method:
1, first of all, the lotus seed to coat the heart into a bowl with water to submerge, and then into the steamer, with a high fire steam about 1 hour, steamed out of standby.
2, will be removed from the cinnamon skin, core, as long as the meat; will be peeled off the chestnut shell and coat.
3, the pot into the appropriate amount of water, and then Panicum, red beans, peanut rice, small red dates cleaned and poured into the pot to cook, to be cooked into half-cooked, and then rice, yellow millet, sticky yellow rice, glutinous rice cleaned and poured into the pot to cook, to be open, and then cook with a slight fire. The porridge will be boiled and simmered to seven or eight mature, the steamed lotus seeds poured into the porridge and stirred well, after the pot was opened and then cooked for a while to move down the fire, served in a clean sterilized pot, sprinkled with sugar. Nowadays, there are supermarkets with good Laha congee ingredients, but you can also choose the ingredients of Laha congee according to their own dietary habits and physical condition, the Laha congee will be unique.