The origin and custom of Laba Festival The eighth day of the second lunar month is Laba Festival in China, and people have the habit of eating Laba porridge. Laba porridge is also called Babao porridge. According to legend, Laba Festival is the day when the Buddha became a monk. Buddhist temples should follow the story of the shepherdess offering honey, and take eight kinds of fragrant valleys and fruits as the Buddha's porridge, hence the name eight-treasure porridge. Laba porridge is simple to make, rich in nutrition and sweet in taste. In the Song Dynasty, people followed suit and spread it widely, becoming a favorite food for the people.

On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Buddhist community regards it as the day when the Buddha realizes. Monks and nuns in temples often cook "eight-treasure porridge" with eight kinds of food, such as glutinous rice, sesame, coix seed, longan, red dates, mushrooms and lotus seeds, and invite the surrounding villagers to have communion and give alms to the people of all ages to show their respect for the Buddha. Later, it gradually became a folk self-cooked eight-treasure porridge (called Laba porridge). For the custom of eating laba porridge.

On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, ancient temples would cook fragrant grains and fruits into porridge to worship Buddha. People also follow the example of cooking this porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month to eliminate disasters and diseases. In the Song Dynasty, the folk Laba porridge in Hangzhou was made of "walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmons, chestnuts, etc." and rice. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Laba porridge was popular everywhere.

Laba porridge is nominally filled with eight kinds of raw materials, but it is not rigid, ranging from four or five to a dozen. Laba porridge in some places is made of glutinous rice, brown sugar and 18 kinds of dried fruits and beans, which is very grand. Mixing rice with lotus seeds, ginkgo biloba, peanuts, red dates, pine nuts and ginger cinnamon to cook Laba porridge has the effects of warming hands and feet and nourishing the body. There is also Laba porridge cooked with cowpea, lily, fungus, tofu and arrowhead. These are all "refined Laba". Laba porridge eaten by ordinary people is a mixture of vegetables, soybeans, broad beans, tofu, carrots and water chestnuts, which is the so-called "coarse Laba".

In some places in northern China where little or no rice is produced, people eat laba noodles instead of laba porridge. The next day, the whole family will eat Laba noodles on the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. In some mountainous areas where corn is produced, when it comes to Laba, corn is used instead of rice to make it "Laba Festival". It is the custom of farmers to cook Laba porridge every year on Laba Festival. Laba porridge, that is, all delicious and edible things at home can be put in a pot in moderation, as well as soybeans, mung beans, cowpeas, peas, hard eggs, sweet potatoes, carrots, wheat flour, corn flour, sorghum flour, barley flour and so on. Can be cooked into a pot of porridge. People often say that if you eat it all, you will grow whole.

December of the lunar calendar is a year. You must eat whole grains and vegetables all year round, so that you can have comprehensive nutrition. This is to pray for human health and family prosperity! The second is to eat it all and harvest it all. After the twelfth lunar month, it will be the New Year. When you eat Laba porridge, you will eat all the grains and vegetables grown in that year, and don't throw anything away, which shows that farmers love everything they harvest on the land. I hope all the crops will grow well and have a good harvest in the new year.