Laba Festival, commonly known as "Laba", is the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. The ancients had a tradition of offering sacrifices to ancestors and gods and praying for a good harvest. In some areas, it was customary to drink Laba porridge. There has been a tradition of Laba Festival in China since ancient times. On this day, most people will cook Laba porridge, and Laba garlic will be made in the northern region. Let's take a look at the customs of Laba Festival!

1. The North-South Customs of Laba Festival

? North?

? 1. Shaanxi custom

After Laba porridge is cooked, you should worship God and worship your 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 has been preserved for a few days, is a good omen, which means "more than one year". If you give porridge to poor people to eat, it is even more good for yourself.

In some places where rice production is low or low, people eat laba noodles instead of laba porridge. Make minced meat with all kinds of fruits and vegetables, and roll out the noodles. On the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family eats together.

? 2, northwest customs

Laba Festival In the northern Shaanxi Plateau, porridge is cooked with a variety of dried fruits, tofu and meat in addition to rice and beans. After eating, you should also put porridge on the door, the stove and the trees outside the door to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters and welcome the bumper agricultural harvest in the coming year. Moreover, Laba is forbidden to eat vegetables on this day. If you eat vegetables on this day, there will be more weeds in the crops. On Laba Day, people not only eat Laba porridge, but also worship ancestors and granaries with porridge.

? 3. Beijing customs

Laba porridge in Beijing can be said to be the most exquisite. There are many things mixed in white rice, such as red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, longan, grapes, ginkgo, moss, roses, red beans, peanuts, etc. There are no fewer than 2 kinds.

People began to wash rice, soak fruits, peel and remove stones on the seventh night of the twelfth lunar month, and began to stew with low fire in the middle of the night. Laba porridge was not cooked until the next morning.

? South:?

? 1. Guangdong customs

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

The ancient Lingnan water town has not been developed, and the life of the indigenous people is not mainly based on farming. They all make a living by fishing shrimp and fish on the water, and the beans and cereals needed for cooking Laba porridge are not cultivated at all, so there will be no custom of eating these things.

Laba is also celebrated in Guangdong, but it is mainly in the Pearl River Delta area, which is a custom brought by Hakkas from the north. However, the materials used to make Laba porridge are different, such as millet and red dates in the north, and glutinous rice, lily and lotus seeds in the south.

? 2, Fujian customs

Fuzhou's traditional Laba porridge has an interesting feature: put a little lion made of several fruits on the porridge to avoid evil spirits. In the past, people in Fuzhou generally began to make Laba porridge on the night of the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, and stewed it carefully all night. The next morning, Laba porridge was cooked.

Some people will carve the fruit into various shapes first, and the most interesting thing is to make a "fruit lion". Crispy jujube is peeled and dried to make a lion's body, half walnut kernel as a lion's head, peach kernel as a lion's foot, almond as a lion's tail, and then all parts are glued together with syrup and placed on porridge noodles.

If the bowl surface is large, you can also put a pair of lions, which means "avoiding evil and being lucky". In the temple courtyard, there are also small shapes such as the Eight Immortals, Luohan and Shouxinggong made of colored foods such as jujube paste, red bean paste and hawthorn.

after laba porridge is cooked, worship the gods and ancestors in the early morning, and then give it to relatives, friends and neighbors before noon. In the end, the whole family will share the food, leaving a little, which is a sign of "more than one year". In the cold winter, drinking a bowl of steaming, sweet and delicious Laba porridge to drive away the cold and warm the stomach is also beneficial to human health.

? 3. Jiangxi customs

Laba Festival is the first festival before the Spring Festival, and Nanchang people regard Laba as a prelude to the Spring Festival. Starting from Laba, every household should prepare peanuts, melon seeds, cured meat and buy new year's goods. There is a folk saying that "eat Laba porridge and look forward to the new year".

"You don't have to choose the Laba day, so you can live a long and prosperous life." In Nanchang, Laba is also a traditional auspicious day. On this day, besides drinking Laba porridge, Nanchang people often hold Laba weddings such as betrothal, daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law.

In ancient times, there were "Nuo" in addition to offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors. Nuo is a unique culture in Jiangxi province, and it is a ceremony to expel epidemic ghosts.

In Nanchang, in order to inherit and develop Nuo culture, Honggutan New District once invested in the construction of Nuo Culture Park. According to historical records, performers usually wear masks and pretend to be King Kong, Lux and Fang Equal, holding knives and holding lots, and everyone beats drums to make noise to drive away ghosts and epidemics. This is also called wax drums to drive away epidemics. It is said that children can be safe and healthy.

Later, the folk changed the form to eat fried beans and wheat, etc. No matter whether beans or wheat are cooked and fried, then let children eat some, which is called "biting ghosts".

Second, the traditional dietary customs of Laba Festival

? 1. Drink Laba porridge

Laba has the custom of eating Laba porridge on this day. Laba porridge is also called Qibao Wuwei porridge. The history of drinking Laba porridge in China has been more than 1 years. It first began in the Song Dynasty. On the day of Laba, whether it's the imperial court, the government, the temple or the people's house of Limin, Laba porridge will be cooked. 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.

among the people, every household should also make laba porridge to offer sacrifices to their ancestors. At the same time, family groups get together to eat and give gifts to relatives and friends. Although the ingredients of Laba porridge in different regions are different, they basically include cereals such as rice, millet, glutinous rice, sorghum rice, purple rice and coix seed, beans such as soybeans, red beans, mung beans, kidney beans and cowpeas, and dried fruits such as red dates, peanuts, lotus seeds, medlar, chestnuts, walnuts, almonds, longan, raisins and ginkgo. Laba porridge is not only a seasonal food, but also a good health product, especially suitable for maintaining the spleen and stomach in cold weather.

? 2. Laba wine and Laba garlic

On Laba day, people in old Beijing want to brew Laba wine and Laba garlic. Soaking Laba wine is to soak purple garlic cloves in yellow rice wine or sorghum wine, seal the mouth and open it for drinking during the Spring Festival. Laba wine aroma smells good, and it can also promote blood circulation and warm the stomach.

Laba garlic, also known as Laba vinegar, is a traditional snack mainly popular in the north, especially in North China. The method is extremely simple, that is, soak the purple garlic cloves in a ceramic jar, fill it with rice vinegar and seal it, and wait until New Year's Eve to eat jiaozi and mix cold dishes. This kind of acetic acid is spicy, and the color of the soaked garlic is turquoise, and the whole body is green, like jade and jasper, which is particularly beautiful and crispy when eaten in the mouth.

There is another saying about the food custom of "garlic" soaked in vinegar or wine in old Beijing, which starts with the homonym of "garlic" and "suan". In the old days of Beijing, it was the custom for shops of various firms to settle accounts in the twelfth lunar month, that is, to liquidate the profit and loss of income and expenditure for one year and check their foreign debts and receivables. At that time, it was generally counted from the day of Laba, as the saying goes, "If you have eaten laba rice, you will get old." Therefore, Laba Festival is also called Laba Count. From the day of Laba, the clerk or money lender often brings a small jar of garlic soaked in Laba to the debtor, and the debtor knows at a glance that it is a debt repayment. When the poor people or small traders who borrowed money were unable to pay their debts, they went out to hide their debts in the days of Laba, 18 and 28 of the twelfth lunar month. Therefore, in order to avoid those who settle accounts and claim debts, ordinary people make "Laba garlic" or "Laba wine" and eat and drink them to get rid of bad luck and enjoy a peaceful and auspicious year.

after Laba, it's New Year! The sweetness of Laba porridge is probably an unforgettable memory in the hearts of everyone in China. I've had a bowl of Laba porridge, and it's near.