Laba Festival

The 8th day of the 12th lunar month is China's Laba Rice Porridge Festival. There is a folk custom of eating laba porridge. As the saying goes, after Laba comes the New Year, and Laba is a prelude to the New Year. So once the time enters the 12th lunar month, the festive atmosphere on the streets becomes increasingly strong. Every household also starts to get busy. For traditional Chinese people, they even feel that only by drinking a bowl of hot laba porridge on the Laba Festival can it be a perfect end to the past year.

Laba porridge is also called eight-treasure porridge. It is said that the Laba Festival is the day when the Buddha "attained enlightenment". Buddhist temples would follow the story of the shepherdess offering porridge, making porridge with eight kinds of fragrant grains and fruits to offer to the Buddha, hence the name eight-treasure porridge. Laba porridge is simple to make, rich in nutrition and sweet in taste.

In the Song Dynasty, the folks followed suit, and it spread widely, becoming a popular delicacy loved by the people.

Origin of the Laba Festival

Laba is also a grand Buddhist festival. It is said that Sakyamuni practiced asceticism for six years after leaving home but achieved nothing. He meditated too much and fainted under the Bodhi tree. A shepherdess passing by saw him and cooked a bowl of porridge for him with miscellaneous grains, wild fruits and clear spring water. After eating the porridge, Sakyamuni regained his strength and continued to meditate under the Bodhi tree. Seven days later, he finally attained enlightenment and became a Buddha on the 8th day of the 12th lunar month.

　　After Buddhism was introduced to China, to commemorate Sakyamuni's enlightenment and express the determination to practice as diligently as the Buddha, Buddhist temples everywhere held Buddha-bathing ceremonies and recited sutras on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month. They also made porridge with grains, fruits, etc., to offer to the Buddha and gave it to disciples and believers in memory of the Buddha.

　　Customs of the Laba Festival

　　1. Making Laba Porridge

　　In the Song Dynasty, the ingredients for cooking Laba porridge included walnuts, pine nuts, milk mushrooms, persimmons, chestnuts, plus rice and beans, totaling seven kinds, symbolizing the "Seven Treasures" of Buddhism and containing the five flavors of life: sour, spicy, bitter, sweet, and salty. Hence, it was called "Seven Treasures and Five Flavors Porridge". Later generations, not understanding its meaning, mostly referred to Laba porridge as "Eight Treasures Porridge", and sometimes they would definitely gather eight kinds of rice, beans, and fruits to make the porridge. In fact, the ingredients of Laba porridge varied in different dynasties. Mr. Lao She even joked that the ingredients for Laba porridge were like a "small agricultural exhibition". So, as long as it is made by simmering a variety of ingredients, there is no need to stick to exactly eight ingredients.

　　China has distinct regional characteristics, and Laba porridge can also be divided into "sweet faction" and "salty faction". Although the forms are diverse, what remains unchanged during this festival is the warm feelings that everyone drinks along with the porridge. Chinese people always like to connect their good wishes with attractive ingredients through the taste buds on the tip of their tongues. Those ingredients are naturally endowed with beautiful hopes: longans represent "reunion", walnuts symbolize "harmony and happiness", lilies mean "harmony in all things"...

　　2. Pickling Laba Garlic

　　Pickling Laba garlic is mainly popular in northern China, especially in North China. Laba garlic is pickled in vinegar, and the finished product is emerald in color with a sour and slightly spicy taste. There is a little story about old Beijingers eating Laba garlic, which comes from the homophony of "garlic" (suàn) and "calculate" (suàn). In old Beijing, every shop had the custom of settling accounts in the twelfth lunar month before the New Year, usually starting from the Laba Festival, just as the saying goes, "After eating Laba porridge, start preparing for the New Year". Therefore, the Laba Festival is also called "Laba Calculation".

　　From the day of Laba, moneylenders would bring a small jar of pickled Laba garlic to debtors, and the debtors would understand what it meant at a glance. Some poor people who borrowed money couldn't pay their debts, so to avoid the "calculation" by those who came to settle accounts and demand debts, they would eat "Laba garlic" to get rid of "bad luck" and have a happy and auspicious New Year.

　　3. Drying Laba Tofu
Laba Tofu is a folk specialty with unique flavor from Yixian County, Huangshan City, Anhui Province. It is made from soybeans, chili peppers, five-spice powder and other ingredients through traditional craftsmanship, and is known as "vegetarian ham". The finished product has a yellowish and smooth color like jade, tastes soft, salty with a hint of sweetness, and is both fragrant and fresh.

As the saying goes, "One area's water and soil nourish its people, and the people create their own dishes". During the Ming and Qing dynasties, Huizhou merchants went out to do business. Ordinary food was not easy to preserve. A merchant's wife used pickling methods to make tofu for her husband as food during his business trips. It was delicious, dry and easy to carry. Later, it was well-received by everyone, and people followed suit. The merchant, to thank his wife, called it "wife tofu". In Yixian County, the pronunciation of "wife" is very similar to "Laba", so over time, this tofu came to be known as Laba Tofu.

4. Cooking Laba Noodles
Laba noodles are popular in the Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province. This is mainly because in the past, some northern regions of China did not produce or produced little rice, so people ate Laba noodles instead of Laba porridge. The noodles are rolled out the day before, and various fruits and vegetables are made into臊子. On the morning of the 8th, the whole family eats Laba noodles. This custom is still followed today.

5. Eating Laba Ice
There is a folk saying: "Whether the coming year will be good or not depends first on the Laba ice". Early in the morning on Laba Festival, people go to the river to break ice and carry it home, which is called "Laba ice". Whoever gets up early and breaks the ice first will have better luck. It is also said that on the day before Laba, people scoop water into a basin to let it freeze, and on Laba Festival, they take the ice out of the basin, break it and eat it. It is said that eating the ice on this day will prevent stomachaches for the whole year, but of course, this is just a "saying".

After "Laba", the Spring Festival is approaching. Every household starts to clean the dust in their houses from Laba. On this day, people eat Laba porridge. In Yixian County, the northern part of Xiuning County and other areas, people also dry tofu, which is called "Laba Tofu". After Laba, every family begins to slaughter pigs for the New Year, invite each other to eat pork feast, make glutinous rice zongzi, make rice cakes, fry oil tofu, stir-fry peanuts and broad beans, make sesame candy, frozen rice candy, etc. Some people also arrange wedding activities on this day, hence the folk rhyme: "Laba, Laba, it's a good day; how many girls become daughters-in-law".