The Lahai Festival, commonly known as "Lahai", that is, the eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar, the ancients have sacrificed to the ancestors and gods, praying for a good harvest and auspicious traditions, and some regions have the custom of drinking Lahai congee. Since ancient times, China has had the tradition of Laha Festival, this day most people will cook Laha congee, the northern region will also make Laha garlic. Here is a look at the Lahai Festival customs in the end what!

A, Lahai traditional food customs

?1, drink Lahai congee

Lahai this day to eat Lahai congee custom, Lahai congee is also known as the seven treasures of the five flavors of porridge. The history of drinking Laha congee in China has been more than a thousand years. The earliest began in the Song Dynasty. Every Laha day, whether it is the court, the government, the temple or the people's home to do Laha congee. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of drinking Laha congee was even more prevalent. In the court, the emperor, the empress, the emperor's son and so on to the civil and military ministers, attendants courtesans to give Lahai congee, and to the various monasteries to distribute rice, fruit and so on for the monks to eat.

In the folk, every family should also make Laha congee to worship ancestors; at the same time, the family reunion together to eat, gifts to friends and relatives. Although the ingredients of Laha congee in different regions are different, they basically include rice, millet, glutinous rice, sorghum rice, purple rice, barley and other cereals, soybeans, red beans, mung beans, kidney beans, cowpeas and other legumes, jujubes, peanuts, lotus seeds, goji berries, chestnuts, walnuts, almonds, cinnamon, raisins, white fruits and other dried fruits. Lapa congee is not only a seasonal food, but also a good health food, especially suitable for maintaining the spleen and stomach in cold weather.

?2, Lahai wine and Lahai garlic

On the day of Lahai, people in old Beijing would make Lahai wine and Lahai garlic. Soak Laha wine is the purple skin garlic cloves soaked in yellow wine or sorghum wine, sealed mouth to be opened for the Spring Festival to drink, Laha wine aroma, but also through the blood, warm stomach.

La Baigong garlic, also known as La Baigong vinegar, is a traditional snack mainly popular in the north, especially in northern China. Practice is extremely simple, is the purple skin garlic cloves soaked in ceramic jars, pour full of rice vinegar sealed, until the New Year's Eve and Spring Festival to eat dumplings and mixed vegetables to eat. This vinegar is sour and spicy, soaked garlic color green, green, like jade jasper, very nice, eat in the mouth very crispy.

On the old Beijing with vinegar or wine soak "garlic" food customs, there is another saying, which is from the "garlic" and "counting" of the harmonic start. The old capital when the merchants store in the year before the Lunar New Year settlement of accounts custom, that is, to liquidate the year's income and expenditure profit and loss, verification of the family owed foreign debt and receivables debt. At that time, generally on the day of Lapa from the check, as the saying goes, "ate Lapa rice, the year to do", therefore, the Lapa Festival is also known as "Lapa calculation. Since the day of Lahai, shopkeepers or moneylenders to collect debts, often with a small jar of Lahai soaked garlic to the debtor, the debtor will understand at a glance to call for debts to come. Debt poor people or vendors unable to pay the debt, in the Lahai, Lahai 18, Lahai 28 days to go out to avoid the debt. Therefore, the people in order to avoid the people who counted the debts and demanded the debt to "count the debts" on Laha, they made "Laha Garlic" or "Laha Wine", and ate and drank them to get rid of the bad luck, and have a peaceful and auspicious year with joy. The year of peace and good fortune.

Two, Lahai custom of the North and South

? The North?

?1, Shaanxi customs

Laha congee boiled, to first honor the gods and ancestors. After that, it is to be presented to friends and relatives, and must be sent out before noon. It is finally consumed by the whole family.

Leftover Laha congee, save a few days to eat there are still left, but a good omen, taking the meaning of its "year after year". If you give the porridge to the poor people to eat, it is more for their own virtue.

Some places that do not produce or less rice, people do not eat Lapa congee, but to eat Lapa noodles. With a variety of fruits and vegetables into a bashful, the noodles rolled. The whole family eats it together on the morning of the eighth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar.

?2, Northwest Customs

Laha Festival in the northern Shaanxi plateau, porridge in addition to a variety of rice, beans, but also have to add a variety of dried fruits, tofu and meat mixed and cooked. After eating, but also the porridge will be smeared on the door, stove and outside the door on the tree, in order to drive away evil spirits to avoid disasters, to meet the next year's agricultural harvest. Moreover, the day avoid eating vegetables. If you eat vegetables on this day, there will be many weeds in the crop field. In addition to eating Laha congee on Laha day, people also have to offer congee to their ancestors and granaries.

?3. Beijing Customs

Beijing's Laha congee can be said to be the most elaborate. Mixed in the white rice more things, such as red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, cinnamon, grapes, white fruit, green silk, roses, red beans, peanuts ...... no less than 20 kinds.

People in the seventh night of the first day of the month of wax began to wash the rice, soak the fruit, pluck the skin, remove the nucleus, the middle of the night to start stewing with a slight fire, until the next morning, Lahai congee is considered to be simmering well.

? South:?

?1. Guangdong Customs

In Guangdong, the atmosphere of Lapa Festival is very light. Why don't the Cantonese people celebrate the Laha Festival? This is related to the geographical location and the living habits of Cantonese people since ancient times.

Ancient Lingnan water town has not yet been developed, the natives life is not based on farming, are relying on the water fishing shrimp fishing fish to make a living, and simmering Lapa congee required beans, cereals simply no one farming, so there will be no custom to eat these things.

Some people in Guangdong also celebrate Laha, but mainly in the Pearl River Delta area, is the Hakka people from the north to bring the custom, but used to make Laha congee has been different, for example, the north more millet, jujubes, while the south is more glutinous rice, lily, lotus seeds and so on.

?2, Fujian customs

Fuzhou's traditional Lahai congee has an interesting feature: on the congee to put a small lion made of several kinds of fruit, to take the meaning of the evil spirits. In the past, people in Fuzhou usually started making Laha congee on the evening of the seventh day of the Lunar New Year, and the congee was simmered overnight, and then boiled in the morning of the next day.

Some people will first carve the fruit into various shapes, the most interesting is to make "fruit lion". The most interesting is the "fruit lion", which is made by drying jujubes after picking out the kernels and making the body of the lion, half of a walnut kernel as the head of the lion, peach kernels as the feet of the lion, and almonds as the tail of the lion, and then sticking all the parts together with molasses and placing them on top of the porridge.

If the bowl is large, you can also set up a double lion, to "avoid evil luck" meaning. In large temples, you can also see small shapes made of date paste, bean paste, hawthorn and other colorful foodstuffs, such as the Eight Immortals, the Lohan, and the Longevity Star.

After the congee is boiled, it is first offered to the gods and ancestors early in the morning, and then presented to friends and neighbors, and sent out before noon. Finally, the whole family to share food, to be left a little bit, to take the "year after year" omen. In the cold winter, drink a bowl of steaming, sweet and savory congee, drive cold and warm stomach, human health is also beneficial.

?3, Jiangxi customs

Laxi Festival is the first festival before the Spring Festival, Nanchang people regard "Laxi" as a prelude to the New Year. From the beginning of Lahai, families should prepare peanuts, melon seeds, cured meat, shopping for New Year's goods. Folk have "eaten the congee, the year to look forward to" said.

"Lahai days do not have to pick, great luck Fushou Jin." In Nanchang, Laha is also a traditional auspicious day. On this day, Nanchang people in addition to drinking "Lapa congee", but also often held a betrothal, marriage, marriage and other "Lapa wedding".

Ancient Waxing Day customs in addition to sacrificing to the gods and ancestors, there is "Nuo". Nuo is unique to the culture of Jiangxi, is an expulsion of epidemic ghosts of the ceremony.

In Nanchang, in order to inherit and develop Nuo culture, Honggutan New District has invested in the construction of Nuo Culture Park. Historical records, performers generally wear masks mounted as King Kong, Rex, square phase, etc., holding a knife and battle-axe, the crowd beat the drums and call, in order to remove the ghosts, epidemics, which is also known as wax drums to drive away the epidemic, legend has it that can protect the children's peace and health.

Later in the folk converted form, into eating fried beans, fried wheat, etc., no matter beans, wheat, to be fried and fried explosion, and then let the children eat some, called "bite the ghost.