The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month is regarded by the Buddhist community as the day when the Buddha realizes. Monks and nuns in the temple often cook "eight-treasure porridge" with eight kinds of food, such as glutinous rice, sesame seeds, coix seed, longan, red dates, mushrooms and lotus seeds, and invite the surrounding villagers to attend the Eucharist 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). The custom of eating laba porridge.
On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, ancient temples would take fragrant grains and fruits and cook 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 and the like" and rice. Eating Laba porridge was popular everywhere in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
Laba porridge is nominally eight kinds of raw materials, but it is not rigid, ranging from four or five to more than a dozen. Laba porridge in some places is made of glutinous rice, brown sugar, 18 kinds of dried fruits and beans, which is very grand. Rice with lotus seeds, ginkgo biloba, peanuts, red dates, pine nuts, ginger and cinnamon is cooked into Laba porridge, which 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, which is mixed with vegetables, soybeans, broad beans, tofu, carrots and water chestnuts, is the so-called "coarse Laba porridge".
In some places in northern China where little or no rice is produced, people eat laba noodles instead of laba porridge. The next day, on the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family will eat Laba noodles. In some corn-producing mountainous areas, when it comes to Laba, corn is used instead of rice, making it the "Laba Festival". It is the custom of farmers to cook Laba porridge every Laba Festival. Laba porridge, that is, all delicious and edible things at home can be put in a pot in moderation, such 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 come out in full length.
The twelfth lunar month is a year. You must eat whole grains and vegetables all year round, so that you can have a comprehensive nutrition. This is to pray for human health and family prosperity! The second is to eat all and collect all. After the twelfth lunar month, it is the New Year. When you eat Laba porridge, you will eat up all the grains and vegetables that grew in that year, and don't abandon anything, 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.