laba is celebrated on the eighth day of the last lunar month, referring to the traditional start of celebrations for the chinese new year. la in chinese means the 12th lunar month and ba means eight.
legends about the origin of this festivity abound. one holds that over 3,000 years ago sacrificial rites called la were held in the twelfth lunar month when people offered their preys to the gods of heaven and earth. the chinese characters for prey and the twelfth month were interchangeable then, and ever since la has been used to refer to both.
since the festival was held on the eighth day of the last month, people later appended the number eight (ba in chinese), giving us the current laba .
the majority han chinese have long followed the tradition of eating laba rice porridge on the laba festival. the date usually falls in mid-january.
laba festival there are two legendary origin. buddha sakyamuni buddha said that a move mountain cultivation. december eighth day that day because of hunger and fatigue zaidao street, was a shepherdess found with large gruel saved so that he dachedawu. enlightenment and buddha. one said that the ming emperor zhu yuan-hour cattle to the rich because the rich bracket was broken off in a room, three days did not give anything to eat, he was unbearable hunger. searched everywhere. finally found a rat hole, dig out the beans, grain and other food, zhu chengyu consumption, find it very sweet.
later, the emperor made the emperor, thinking a child eat porridge and that the taste of dayton, he ordered his eunuchs to use a variety of food cooked up a pot of sugar porridge, feast courtiers, after north korea wenwubaiguan emulated and passed civil society, sui cheng a holiday customs. by zhu yuan sugar porridge eighth day of the days of the twelfth lunar month, so this porridge is also called laba porridge of.
labazhou, a kind of rice porridge, is traditionally served on the eighth day of the 12th lunar month.
since ba, the number eight, has very good connotations in chi-nese, labazhou is also known as eight treasure porridge babaozhou.
here eight does not necessarily mean exactly eight; it just means many.
the dish is also tasty, with its combination of colourful and sweet ingredients. eating it is not limited to only the eighth day of the 12th month. chinese people enjoy eight treasure porridge throughout theyear.
the common way of making labazhou are to boil rice, millet, glutinous millet, glutinous rice, chestnuts and dried dates. then, add peanuts, almonds, walnuts, melon - seed kernels, dried fruits and brown sugar to make the gruel not only delicious but also nutritious.
it is not certain whether babaozhou originated in china. but one thing is for sure the history of labazhou can be traced back to an-cient times, when the eighth day of the 12th lunar month was consid-ered a day for animal sacrifice.
the introduction of labazhou on this day was first observed in the song dynasty (9601279), some 1,000 years ago.according to written records, large buddhist temples would offer rice porridge, with other spices, on the eighth day of the 12th lunar month, a buddhist festival day for followers to show their faith to buddha.
by the ming dynasty (13681644), labazhou had become such a holy food that it was a customary festival gift the emperors offered to their officials.
as labazhou gained the favour of the feudal upper class, it quickly became popular throughout the country.
the ingredients used in labazhou are unlimited. it can include anything one deems precious, nutritious, tasty or good for the health.
the recipe given just now is an average meal. however,you might also want to add red beans, pine nuts, or more expensive lotus seeds, lily,ginkgo seeds and longan.
labazhou is billed by traditional chinese medicine as a health food that is particularly good for the spleen, stomach and blood.
