Eating Laba porridge during the Spring Festival

　　The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is regarded by the Buddhist community as the day when the Buddha became enlightened. Monks and nuns in the temple often cook "Eight Treasures Porridge" with eight kinds of food, including glutinous rice, sesame seeds, Yiren, Guiyuan, red dates, shiitake mushrooms, and lotus seeds. They invite the surrounding mountain people to have the Holy Communion and give alms to the old and young to share with the people to show their respect for the Buddha. Later, people gradually cooked eight-treasure porridge (called Laba porridge) for consumption. The custom of eating "Laba porridge" was formed.

　　On every eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, ancient temples would cook porridge with fragrant grains and fruits to worship the Buddha. Folks also followed suit and cooked porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month to ward off disasters and diseases. The folk Laba porridge in Hangzhou during the Song Dynasty was cooked with "walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmons, chestnuts, etc." and rice (see "Old Wulin Stories"). During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Laba porridge was popular in various places.

　　Laba porridge nominally requires eight ingredients, but there are no strict requirements. It can range from four or five ingredients to more than a dozen ingredients. Laba porridge in some places is made of glutinous rice, brown sugar, eighteen kinds of dried fruits and beans, and is very grand.

　　Mix lotus seeds, ginkgo, peanuts, red dates, pine nuts with ginger and cinnamon and other seasonings into rice and cook it into Laba porridge, which can warm the hands and feet and nourish the body. There are also Laba porridge made from cowpeas, golden needles, fungus, tofu, mushrooms, etc. These are "thin Laba".

　　The Laba porridge that ordinary people eat is made by adding vegetables, soybeans, broad beans, tofu, carrots, and water chestnuts to the rice. It is the so-called "thick Laba porridge".

　　In some places in northern my country that do not produce or produce little rice, people do not eat Laba porridge, but eat Laba noodles. The next day, make sautee with various fruits and vegetables, roll out the noodles, and on the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family will eat Laba noodles.

　　In some mountainous areas where corn is grown, corn is used instead of rice during Laba Festival to make "Laba Mairen" to eat. Farmer custom is to make Laba porridge every time on Laba day. Laba porridge means putting everything you have at home that is delicious and edible into the pot in moderation, such as soybeans, mung beans, cowpeas, peas, eggs, potatoes, carrots, wheat flour, corn flour, sorghum flour, barley flour, etc., and cook them into a pot of porridge, which is sweet and delicious, with an unforgettable aftertaste. It is often said that if you eat the whole thing, you will grow the whole thing.

　　The twelfth lunar month is the end of the year. Throughout the year, you must eat all kinds of grains and vegetables, so that you can have comprehensive nutrition. This is to pray for good health and prosperity for the family! Secondly, it is to eat well and harvest well. After the twelfth lunar month, it is the new year. When eating Laba porridge, eat all the grains and vegetables grown in the field that year, and do not reject anything. It shows that farmers cherish everything harvested from the land and hope that in the new year, all crops will grow well and be rich.