In short, the ingredients of Laba porridge are different, because the whole grains and fruits and vegetables produced in different places are different. Southerners like to eat sweet and delicious Laba porridge, while northerners prefer to cook salty Laba porridge, which basically conforms to the regional eating habits of sweet south and salty north.
Grain is the most important ingredient for cooking Laba porridge. The theory of five grains has a long history in China, generally referring to millet, beans, hemp, wheat and rice. Huangdi Neijing holds that grains refer to "japonica rice, adzuki bean, wheat, soybean and millet"; "Mencius? Teng Wengong called the five grains "rice, millet, millet, wheat and glutinous rice"; Buddhists call grains "barley, wheat, rice, adzuki beans and flax"; In Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen recorded 33 kinds of cereals, 14 kinds of beans and 47 kinds of * * * in Compendium of Materia Medica.
In modern times, people think that grain is a broad concept, including all kinds of cereals and beans, such as millet, corn, brown rice, buckwheat, barley, oats, sweet potatoes, black beans, broad beans, mung beans and peas. China people's eating habits with grains as the main body have been followed for thousands of years. The book Huangdi Neijing puts forward that China people should take grains as nourishment, five fruits as help, five livestock as benefit and five vegetables as supplement. The ancients used whole grains as the main ingredients to cook Laba porridge. Obviously, they have realized the health care and dietotherapy functions of grains. The porridge spectrum written by Cao Yanshan, a nutritionist in Qing dynasty, analyzes the nutritional value and health care function of Laba porridge in detail. He believes that Laba porridge rich in grain has the functions of harmonizing stomach and strengthening spleen, nourishing heart and clearing lung, benefiting kidney and liver, quenching thirst and improving eyesight, relaxing bowels and calming nerves, and is a good food therapy.
Besides whole grains, China is also very particular about the choice of ingredients for Laba porridge.
Beijing people add more items to the grain, such as red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, longan, hazelnuts, grapes, ginkgo, water chestnut, moss, roses, red beans and peanuts ... no less than 20 kinds in total. On the night of the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month, people began to get busy, washing rice, soaking fruits, peeling, removing stones and picking carefully, then cooking in the middle of the night and stewing with low fire until Laba porridge was cooked the next morning.
Tianjin people cook Laba porridge almost like Beijing people. Some people add lily, lotus seed, pearl rice, coix seed, Italian kernel rice, glutinous rice, sticky yellow rice, mung bean, mung bean, longan pulp, ginkgo, longan pulp, red dates, sweet-scented osmanthus and so on.
Laba porridge in Shanxi is mainly millet, with adzuki bean, cowpea, jujube, mung bean, sticky yellow rice and rice.
Shandong traditional Laba porridge culture is deeply influenced by "Confucian diet system" and can be divided into two categories. One is coix seed, longan, lily, lotus seeds, red dates, chestnuts, japonica rice and so on. When put into the bowl, add some fruits carved into various shapes as decorations; The other is cooked with rice, sliced meat, cabbage and tofu.
Laba porridge in Jiangsu is divided into sweet and salty, and there is no difference in cooking methods. Salted Laba porridge will be mixed with vegetables and cooking oil.
Suzhou Laba porridge contains ingredients such as water chestnut, arrowhead, pine nuts, walnut kernels, euryales seeds, chestnuts, red dates, fungus, Flammulina velutipes and vegetables.
The dietary concept of traditional social health preservation in China has been fully demonstrated in the composition and selection of ingredients of Laba porridge in various places.