The folk custom of drinking "Laba porridge" on Laba Day began in the Song Dynasty. Since the Qing Dynasty, the annual Laba Festival, Beijing Yonghe Palace will also hold a grand Laba ceremony. Drinking laba porridge, many northerners still like to eat eight garlic with it. Laba garlic is mainly popular in northern China, especially in North China. In Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province, it is also popular to eat Laba noodles. This is mainly because in the past, some areas in northern China did not produce or produced less rice, and people ate Laba noodles instead of Laba porridge.
Laba has the custom of eating Laba porridge on this day, which is also called Qibao Wuwei porridge. The history of drinking Laba porridge in China has been more than 1 years. On Laba Day, the folk people drink Laba porridge, and the written records began in the Song Dynasty. [2] On the day of Laba, whether it is the court, the government, the temple or the people's home, Laba porridge should be made. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of drinking Laba porridge was even more popular. At court, emperors, queens and princes all give laba porridge to ministers of civil and military affairs and attendants, and distribute rice and fruits 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 groups get together to eat and give gifts to relatives and friends. There are many varieties of Laba porridge in China. Among them, Beiping is the most exquisite, and there are many items mixed in white rice, such as red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, longan, hazelnuts, grapes, ginkgo, water chestnut, moss, roses, red beans and peanuts, totaling no less than twenty 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, picking carefully, then starting to cook in the middle of the night, and then stewing with low fire until the next morning, when Laba porridge was cooked. More exquisite people have to carve the fruit into human shapes, animals and patterns first, and then cook it in a pot. The more distinctive thing is to put fruit lions in Laba porridge. Fruit lion is a lion made of several kinds of fruits, with crisp dates peeled and dried 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 to use jujube paste, bean paste, yam, hawthorn cake and other foods with various colors to knead them into statues of the Eight Immortals, longevity stars and arhats. This kind of decorative Laba porridge can only be seen on the altar of the former big temple. After laba porridge is cooked, you should worship God and ancestors first. After that, you should give it to your relatives and friends, and you must send it out before noon. Finally, it is eaten by the whole family. The leftover Laba porridge, which is preserved after eating for a few days, is a good sign, which means that it is more than enough every year. If you give porridge to poor people to eat, it is even more good for yourself. Laba porridge also has the function of witchcraft in the folk. If there are flowers and fruit trees in the yard, we should also smear some Laba porridge on the branches. I believe it will bear more fruits in the coming year. On the day of Laba, in addition to offering sacrifices to ancestors and worshipping God, there are also mourning for national subjugation and mourning.