Not only Laba porridge, but also porridge has a long history in China.
It is estimated that most people don't necessarily know why they celebrate Laba Festival, but they should all know that they want to eat Laba porridge on this day. Interestingly, people in China especially like to eat in some solar terms, such as spring cakes in jiaozi and beginning of spring from winter solstice ... Speaking of Laba porridge, do you know how many years people in China have been eating porridge?
Porridge has a long history.
The history of porridge is earlier than that of rice, because pot-shaped pottery before retort can only be used to cook liquid food. The main raw material of liquid is Gu Mi, which is "porridge". Because the main and non-staple foods at that time, that is, the so-called rice and vegetables in later generations, were not cooked separately, or all kinds of foods were cooked in one pot, the early porridge was probably not cooked with pure grain raw materials. In other words, porridge at that time was probably all kinds of vegetable porridge, fruit porridge, meat porridge, fish porridge and so on.
As early as the Neolithic Longshan Cultural Site and banpo village Site, people discovered the porridge cooking tool-"pedicle". The word porridge was originally written as "Wei", which is very similar to the shape of cooking rice in the pottery stove "Wei" created in Longshan culture period. This just shows that our ancestors began to know how to cook porridge thousands of years ago.
Zuozhuan? There is a record in "Seven Years of Zhao Gong": "So, so, to paste its mouth." Kong Ying Da's "Sparse": "The thick is the secret, and the stupid is the son. "Obviously, gruel is called' glutinous rice' and thick porridge is called' glutinous rice', which is synonymous with paste." Dialect commentary: "Paste? Also; ? Thick porridge. "In ancient times, porridge was also called" rice ","fragrance "and" south ".
Xu Shen's Shuo Wen Jie Zi in the Han Dynasty recorded: "The Yellow Emperor taught me first." There are similar records in the Book of Beginners, the Collection of Arts and Literature, and the Book of the North Hall: "The Yellow Emperor began to cook the valley for porridge." It can be seen that when Emperor Xuanyuan was around, he had already taught his people to "cook the valley for porridge".
Eating porridge is good for health.
Ancient people ate porridge related to health and longevity, which was recorded most in many medical and health books.
The earliest record of treating diseases with drugs and Gu Mi's porridge should be Historical Records written by Sima Qian in the Han Dynasty. Records of the Historian recorded the case of Chunyu Kun, a famous doctor in the Western Han Dynasty, who used fire, porridge and drinking to treat diseases.
In various medical books unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, there are also records of porridge treatment, such as taking sorghum rice porridge to treat snake wounds; Cooking rice porridge with heated stones for oral administration can actually treat itching and the like. Treatise on Febrile Diseases written by Zhang Zhongjing, a famous doctor in the Eastern Han Dynasty, also recorded many famous rice medicine prescriptions, such as "White Tiger Decoction", "Peach Blossom Decoction" and "Bamboo Leaf Gypsum Decoction", all of which contained japonica rice.
Meng E in the Tang Dynasty wrote a book "Herbs for Dietetic Therapy". According to the remnants of Dunhuang Grottoes in Gansu Province, this book contains "Ming porridge, persimmon porridge, Qin pepper porridge and Shu pepper porridge". Yin Yan's Medical Doctor's Heart Guide contains 57 kinds of medicinal porridge prescriptions, which are divided into nine categories according to stroke, chilling pain, five kinds of choking pain and seven kinds of colic. Sun Simiao's Emergency Prescription for Preparing a Thousand Daughters includes cereal bran porridge for treating beriberi, sheep bone porridge for warming and nourishing yang, and wind-proof porridge for removing wind in limbs.
It is said that Hengli in Tang Muzong especially appreciates pretending to be relaxed, so she gives him windproof porridge. According to Feng Zhi's Miscellanies of Yunxian? "Fangfeng porridge" records: "Bai Juyi was in Hanlin, giving Fangfeng porridge one ou, taking Fangfeng five times and eating it for seven days." That is porridge cooked with parsnips and rice. Of course, "seven-day incense" is somewhat exaggerated, but it also shows that people have regarded porridge as a kind of health-preserving and nourishing food at this time.
Porridge is cheap and convenient.
In the eyes of the ancients in China, it is generally believed that porridge is better than rice. There are two main reasons for this concept: first, eating porridge saves food than eating. At that time, the farming technology was still immature, and the grain output was small, which was a very scarce and necessary resource for survival, so thrift was very needed. Second, porridge is simpler and more convenient than rice. In ancient times, the cooking technology of cooking rice was much higher than that of cooking porridge. At that time, if you want to eat rice, you must first have a pot and a steamer similar to a modern steamer. Therefore, cooking is more complicated, far from being a pot, and boiling water and adding grain has always been very simple. This is also an important reason why porridge was far more important than rice in the daily diet at that time.
The cheapness and convenience of porridge made it unpopular with the nobles for a long time. In the year of the great disaster, "giving porridge" became a charitable means, so in the eyes of most upper-class people, drinking porridge is only food for poor families and victims. This situation did not ease until the Song Dynasty. There is a passage "Zhou Mi" in the "Food Department" of Taiping Magnolia, and porridge is "canonized" as a national food for the first time. Let's take a look at how much literati in the Song Dynasty loved porridge.
Celebrities who loved porridge in ancient times
Speaking of eating, I have to mention Su Shi. He ate soybean milk mixed with porridge cooked in Gong Mi, Wuxi, and wrote a poem "Bean Porridge", in which there is such a sentence: "I don't know when my body and mind are upside down, but I know that there is a true taste in the world." He also wrote a poem related to porridge, entitled "Peas and barley porridge crossing the city of Tangyin to show my three sons", and there is also a kind of porridge-"Peas and barley porridge". Mr. Dongpo's text also mentioned that rice porridge "can promote innovation and benefit the stomach." . Porridge is fast and beautiful, and it's wonderful to sleep after eating porridge. "
The person who is deeply obsessed with eating porridge is the poet Lu You, who wrote "Eating Porridge": "Everyone in the world is an elderly person, and I don't believe how many years are in the present. I want to learn from the people and only eat porridge for the gods. " In his eyes, "eating porridge" can be associated with longevity and longevity.
Compared with the previous dynasties, the porridge recorded in the Song Dynasty is more abundant, and the porridge at this time is not just for filling the stomach. There are 1 13 therapeutic porridge prescriptions in Shengji General Record, 129 therapeutic porridge prescriptions in Taiping Shenghui Recipe, and 43 nourishing medicinal porridge suitable for middle-aged and elderly people in Pension Book.
Laba porridge became popular in Song Dynasty.
Laba Festival is related to Buddhist stories, and almost everyone will eat Laba porridge on this day.
Laba porridge, which Laba wants to eat on this day, has also been popular since the Song Dynasty.
Laba Festival originated from Buddhist stories, and when it was introduced to China has not been studied in detail. In the greenhouse sutra translated by An Shigao at the end of the Han Dynasty, it was said that the Buddha advised people to support and set up a bath to wash the Buddha, but it did not specify the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. Meng Haoran's "Buddha Ceremony of Shicheng Temple in Badan County of the twelfth lunar month" mentioned: "The stone wall opens a golden statue, and Xiangshan surrounds an iron fence. See Maitreya Buddha in the afterlife, and return home. Bamboo and cypress are ancient in Zen, but the balcony world is rare. The sunset glow adds color and the afterglow is brilliant. The lecture was invited to give lectures, and the bathrobe was applied to the spring hall. I am willing to contribute water and dust machines from now on. " This poem reflects the scene of bathing Buddha's light in a Buddhist temple on December 8 in the Tang Dynasty. However, it was not until the Song Dynasty that this activity became popular, and there were few records about it in previous books.
In Wu's dream, there is such a description: "On the eighth day of this month, the temple is called Laba porridge, and Dasha Temple has five-flavor porridge called Laba porridge." "Tokyo Dream of China Record" also said: "On the eighth day of the eighth day, there were three or five monks and nuns in the streets and lanes, forming a team to recite the Buddha and showering them with silver, copper, sand or good pots of poplar branches to educate them. The major temples serve as bathing Buddha clubs. "
During the Tang and Song Dynasties, the custom of bathing Buddha and sending porridge to Buddhist temples had a great influence on the people. "Tokyo Dream" once recorded that the temple "sent seven treasures of five-flavor porridge and disciples, named Laba porridge, all of whom were Japanese and cooked porridge with fruit and miscellaneous materials."
This year1February 8th is the day when Buddha Sakyamuni realized to become a Buddha. According to Indian Buddhist scriptures, before becoming a Buddha, Sakyamuni once became a monk, but after experiencing the ascetic life of ideas, he still didn't get rid of all kinds of troubles in his life mentally. At this time, he was very hungry and exhausted to the extreme. At this time, a shepherdess brought a cow, and he recovered his strength after drinking it. Therefore, Sakyamuni made a vow to say: "If you eat and drink today, you will be wise and live long." Since then, the shepherdess has provided him with chyle every day. After January, when he was strong, he bathed in the river, washed away the dirt, meditated under the bodhi tree for seven days and seven nights, and finally became a Buddha. Therefore, Buddhists regard1February 8, the day when the Buddha became a Taoist, as a Taoist festival to commemorate the Buddha.
Buddhism had a great influence on the people in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and even introduced some customs of the people. Among them, the behavior of Buddhist children sending porridge on the Buddha's Light Festival of Laba Festival has gradually evolved into the custom of eating Laba porridge on Laba Festival in China.
The custom of eating Laba porridge in Ming and Qing Dynasties
During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the custom of eating Laba porridge further developed. Long Qingzhi, compiled during Jiajing period, recorded that "millet, rice, sorghum, rice and beans are mixed, and porridge is cooked with dates, chestnuts and walnuts". Li Cheng, written by Liu Min in the Ming Dynasty, also recorded that "Laba porridge was made on December 8th, and the giver helped the poor". It was also mentioned in the Textual Research on Old Stories of Sun in the Qing Dynasty: "On December 8, porridge was given and Laba porridge was also made by the people. It is made of rice and fruit, and the winner is the person who owns many products. This story follows the story of the Song Dynasty. "
On Laba Day, Laba porridge is cooked in palaces, yamen, monasteries and people's homes. In the Qing Dynasty, the custom of drinking Laba porridge became more popular. At court, emperors, queens and princes give laba porridge to civil and military ministers and attendants, and distribute rice and fruit to monasteries for monks to eat. Ordinary people, as well as every household, should make laba porridge to worship their ancestors. At the same time, family members get together for dinner and give gifts to relatives and friends.
How particular is Laba porridge?
There are many kinds of Laba porridge all over the country, especially in Beiping. White rice is mixed with many items, such as red dates, lotus seeds, walnuts, chestnuts, almonds, pine nuts, longan, hazelnuts, grapes, ginkgo, water chestnut, roses, red beans, peanuts and so on ... almost no less than twenty kinds. Generally, on the seventh night of the twelfth lunar month, we start to be busy, washing rice, soaking fruits, peeling, coring and picking carefully. Then they start cooking in the middle of the night, and then simmer until the next morning. Laba porridge is cooked.
Some fastidious families should first carve the fruit into human shapes, animals and patterns, and then cook it in a pot. Some Laba porridge will also put a "fruit lion". Fruit lion is a lion made of several kinds of fruits, with peeled and dried crisp dates as the lion's body, half walnut kernel as the lion's head, peach kernel as the lion's foot and sweet almond as the lion's tail. Then stick them together with sugar and put them in a porridge bowl, just like a little lion. In a bigger bowl, you can put two lions or four little lions. More exquisite, it is made of jujube paste, red bean paste, yam, hawthorn cake and other foods in various colors, and kneaded into statues of the Eight Immortals, the birthday girl, Luohan and so on.
After laba porridge is ready, you should worship God and ancestors first, and then give it to relatives and friends, and you must send it out before noon so that the whole family can eat it. The leftover Laba porridge should be preserved. If you can eat it for a few days, it is a good sign, which means "more than one year". There is also a proverb in the northeast, "Laba Laba, frozen chin", which means Laba is very cold. Eating Laba porridge can keep people warm and resist the cold. "Laba porridge, you can't finish it. After eating Laba porridge, there will be a bumper harvest. " On this day in Guanzhong area, every household should cook a pot of Laba porridge and have a good meal. Not only adults and children eat it, but also some animals, chickens and dogs, and put some on doors, walls and trees for good luck.
History of porridge in Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties
Ok, let's talk about the history of porridge.
The Yuan Dynasty also attached great importance to porridge, and there were many porridge prescriptions for nourishing, strengthening, prolonging life and preventing and treating diseases in the book Diet is Essential edited by Hu Sihui, a physician. For example, begging for horse porridge, which "tonifies the spleen and stomach and benefits qi", is actually porridge made of mutton and sorghum rice; In addition, there is medlar and sheep kidney porridge for "treating yang decline, five strains and seven injuries"; There are yam porridge for fatigue, long-term steaming of bones, pockmarked porridge and purslane porridge. In addition, Li Dongyuan's "Edible Materia Medica" introduces the most commonly used porridge recipes in 28 directions, such as mung bean porridge, Poria porridge, hemp seed porridge, perilla porridge and bamboo leaf porridge. At that time, porridge was already very developed.
By the Ming dynasty, porridge and diet had a greater development. Compendium of Materia Medica compiled by Li Shizhen, a famous medical scientist, contains a large number of porridge and dietotherapy prescriptions. Puji Fang, the largest cookbook since Han and Tang Dynasties, collected 180 kinds of porridge recipes, and made a comprehensive and detailed discussion on each recipe. In addition, there are porridge recipes in Liu Bowen's Multifunctional Pranks,'s Eight Chapters of Respect for Life, Zhu Quan and Wang's works. It can be seen that in the Ming Dynasty, it was very common to treat diseases with porridge.
The porridge spectrum of the Qing Dynasty is even more dazzling. Cao Tingdong's Essays on Health Care contains 102 kinds of recipes for diet porridge, and he divides medicinal porridge into three categories: top grade, middle grade and inferior grade. The porridge spectrum compiled by Huang Yungu in Guangxu period is the earliest monograph on medicinal porridge in China, which contains 247 porridge recipes, including cereals, vegetables, fruits, medicinal materials, medicinal materials and animals.
There is a great difference between north and south porridge.
Due to the different ingredients planted, the characteristics of porridge vary from place to place. (The above pictures are all online) Although they are all porridge, there are great differences in the choice of ingredients between the north and the south. The hinterland of the northern Central Plains was the main grain producing area in ancient times. The crops planted are not only grain crops such as millet, millet, sorghum and wheat, but also miscellaneous crops such as red beans, mung beans, red beans and black beans. In addition, the Central Plains region is also rich in various dried fruits, such as our common red dates, peanuts, walnuts, pine nuts, almonds, etc., mainly produced in the northern region. These ingredients can be used as the main raw materials of porridge, so most of the porridge in the north is mainly food, beans, dried fruits and other ingredients. A few will match vegetables, fruits and even preserves, and the taste is generally light and less oily.
Different from porridge with less meat in the north, porridge in the south is very abundant, especially in coastal areas. Almost any creature, chop suey and leftovers can be put into porridge and cooked together. No matter all kinds of seafood, abalone wings of pigs, cattle and sheep, or brains of cattle and sheep, you can't cook porridge. The porridge in the north pays more attention to self-cultivation and is mainly vegetarian, while the porridge in the south has strong nourishing function and features meat.
As for cooking porridge, the ancients were also quite particular about it. Yuan Mei's "Suiyuan Food List" Chinese "See the water but not the rice, not the porridge; See rice but not water, not porridge. It will make rice and water blend, soft and greasy, and then it will be called porridge. " At the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty, Li Yu's discussion on leisure porridge was more perfect. He believes that "the serious disease of porridge is deposited on the supernatant, such as paste, and the heat is uneven." This is uncooked porridge. If you want to make porridge well, you must balance the ratio of rice to water, the time of suffering and the heat. He described porridge like this: "When scooping water, it must be limited to a few spoonfuls, so that the spoonfuls do not increase or decrease, and then evenly stir and heat, so porridge is rice, not seeking common ground but not seeking differences."
In times of peace and prosperity, porridge is an enjoyment of appreciation and health preservation, but in times of war and famine, Lebanese people feel more enthusiastic about porridge. No matter how chaotic the world is, as long as they have porridge in their hands, they will be practical. There is an allusion to porridge in history, which is called "the sound of sipping porridge". It's about Zhou Xuanwang. One year, there was a famine. A minister cooked porridge in a large iron pot in the yard. Hundreds of people in the whole family, master and servant, drank porridge together. The sound of hundreds of people drinking porridge can be heard from miles away. During the famine period, the Emperor of Heaven ordered porridge to help the victims, and it was the most practical and effective way to stabilize the people and protect the country with a bowl of porridge.