Customs around Laba Festival 1, Tianjin Customs
When Tianjin people cook Laba porridge, they should add lotus seeds, lilies, pearl rice, Italian glutinous rice, coix seed, sticky yellow rice, beans, mung beans, longan meat, longan meat, ginkgo, red dates, sweet-scented osmanthus in syrup, etc. , and add black rice with good color and fragrance. The Laba porridge can be used for dietotherapy, and has the effects of invigorating spleen, stimulating appetite, invigorating qi, calming nerves, clearing away heart fire and nourishing blood.
2. Shanxi Customs
Laba porridge in Shanxi, also known as eight-treasure porridge, is mainly millet, with cowpea, adzuki bean, mung bean, jujube, sticky yellow rice and glutinous rice. In the southeast of Shanxi, it is also one of the dietary customs to cook red beans, red beans, cowpeas, sweet potatoes, peanuts, glutinous rice and persimmons in water on the fifth day of the twelfth lunar month.
3. Northern Shaanxi customs
On the day of Laba in the northern Shaanxi Plateau, in addition to rice and beans, porridge is cooked with various dried fruits, tofu and meat. Usually cooked in the morning, sweet and salty, depending on people's tastes. If you eat at noon, you should also cook some noodles in the porridge for family reunion. After eating, you should put porridge on the door, on the stove and on the tree outside the door to ward off evil spirits and avoid disasters and welcome the bumper harvest next year. According to folklore, it is forbidden to eat vegetables on Laba, saying that there are many weeds in the field after eating Lai crops. Laba, a native of southern Shaanxi, wants to eat porridge with five flavors and eight flavors. The former is cooked with rice, glutinous rice, peanuts, ginkgo and beans. The latter used the above five kinds of raw diced meat, tofu, radish and seasonings. On Laba Festival, people not only eat Laba porridge, but also worship their ancestors' granaries with porridge.
4. Gansu Customs
Gansu people traditionally cook Laba porridge with whole grains and vegetables, which is not only eaten by family members, but also distributed to neighbors. It is also used to feed livestock in Lanzhou and Baiyin urban areas. Laba porridge is made of rice, beans, red dates, ginkgo, lotus seeds, raisins, dried apricots, walnuts, shredded green and red, sugar and diced meat. After cooking, it is first used to worship the door god, kitchen god, land god and god of wealth, and pray for good weather and abundant crops; Then give it to the neighbors and give it to the last family. Wuwei, Gansu pays attention to "Sulaba" and eats japonica rice, lentil rice or japonica rice. After cooking, eat with fried seeds and twist. Folk call it "bean porridge bubble".
5. Ningxia customs
People in Ningxia usually cook porridge with lentils, soybeans, red beans, broad beans, black beans, rice and potatoes as laba rice, and add "ears of wheat" to buckwheat noodles cut into rhombic willow leaves, or make it into "sparrow heads" of small round eggs, and add chopped green onion to cook porridge.
6. Shandong Customs
There are two kinds of "Laba porridge" in Shandong, one is made of Coix lachryma, longan, lotus seeds, lilies, chestnuts, red dates and japonica rice, and some "porridge fruits" are added to the bowl, mainly carved into fruits of various shapes for ornament. The other is made of rice, sliced meat, cabbage and tofu.