La Ba is the day to make La Ba porridge. It requires ingredients such as millet, rice, glutinous rice [yellow rice can be used], red beans, green beans, cowpeas, red dates [small jujube], peanuts, etc. When cooked, add sugar and stir, let it cool for fifteen minutes before eating. Detailed process: The day before, soak the red beans, green beans, and cowpeas in warm water for a day. On the second day, put them in the pot, then add millet, rice, glutinous rice, red dates, peanuts, etc., and add a large amount of alkali [edible alkali] and cook until done.
Many years ago, I saw one family making the most La Ba porridge in the countryside; one household made more than 200 catties of porridge, which was stored in a cold room with a large iron shovel on top. For an individual, this would last for a year, and it was the largest household I've seen making La Ba porridge, haha, haha.
Legend has it that in ancient India's south, now Nepal's north, there was a Kapilavastu kingdom with a king named Śuddhodana. He had a son named Siddhartha Gautama who, at a young age, felt deeply moved by the suffering of birth, aging, sickness, and death in the world. He realized the futility of worldly pleasures and was dissatisfied with the Brahmanical divine rights. At the age of 29, he left the luxurious life of the royal family, renounced secular life, and practiced asceticism for six years. Around 525 BCE, one day under a Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya, he attained enlightenment and founded Buddhism. History records that this day was exactly the eighth day of the twelfth month of the lunar calendar. Since he belonged to the Śākya clan, Buddhist followers later respectfully called him Śākyamuni, meaning the sage of the Śākya clan. Before Śākyamuni attained enlightenment, he had practiced severe asceticism and was emaciated from hunger. He decided to stop this practice when he encountered a herdsman who offered him milk gruel. After drinking the milk gruel, he regained his strength, sat under the Bodhi tree, and attained enlightenment on the eighth day of the twelfth month. In the lunar calendar, the twelfth month is called "là" month, so the eighth day is called "làbā." In Han regions of the People’s Republic of China, this day is regarded as the day Śākyamuni attained enlightenment, making La Ba a Buddhist festival. After Buddhism spread to our country, building temples and cooking porridge to honor Buddha became popular. Especially on the eighth day of the twelfth month, the night Śākyamuni attained enlightenment, temples would hold scripture chanting sessions. They followed the legend of the herdsman offering milk gruel after Śākyamuni's enlightenment and prepared porridge with fragrant grains and fruits as offerings, known as La Ba porridge. This is the origin of La Ba porridge. The "Ba Zhang Qing Gui" says: "On the eighth day of the twelfth month, it is the day when the venerable Śākyamuni attained enlightenment. Monks prepare incense, candles, tea, and delicacies as offerings." Temples hold scripture chanting sessions on this day.
Legend 2:
It is said that when Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty was a child, his family was very poor, so he worked as a cowherd for a wealthy family. One day while herding cattle, he passed through a bridge where the cattle slipped and fell, breaking a leg. The wealthy man was furious and locked him in a room without food. Starving, Zhu Yuanzhang discovered a rat hole in the room and found it to be a grain storehouse of the rats, containing rice, beans, and red dates. He cooked these together into a pot of porridge and found it delicious. Later, when Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, he remembered this event and asked the imperial chef to cook a pot of porridge made from various grains and beans. The day he ate it happened to be the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, so it was called La Ba porridge.
Legend 3:
In a recent year, there was a family of four, consisting of elderly parents and two sons. The elderly couple worked hard all year round on their farm. Through spring plowing, summer weeding, and autumn harvesting, they lived frugally. Their home was filled with abundant grains, large granaries full and small ones overflowing. They also had a large jujube tree in their yard, carefully cultivated by the couple, producing sweet and firm jujubes. These were sold at the market, earning them much silver, and their lives were quite prosperous.
The couple worked tirelessly for their sons' futures, aiming to marry them off. As their sons approached marriageable age and the couple grew old, the father instructed the brothers to continue farming well, and the mother urged them to take care of the jujube tree, saving money and grain for marriage.
Now only the two brothers remained in the household. The elder brother looked at the full granaries and said to the younger, "We have so much grain, enough for us. Let's rest this year!" The younger brother agreed, saying, "This year, we won't bother with the jujube tree either. Anyway, we won't have extra jujubes to eat."
Thus, the brothers became increasingly lazy and indulgent. Year after year, they ate and played, and within a few years, they consumed all the grain. The jujube tree bore fewer and fewer fruits each year.
By the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, there was nothing left to eat at home. What to do? The elder brother found a small broom, and the younger brother brought out an old winnowing basket. They swept the large and small granaries, gathering a handful of yellow rice here, a handful of red beans there, and so on, collecting various grains. They also found a few dried red dates and cooked them all together in a pot. When they tasted the porridge made from the mixed grains, they looked at each other and remembered their parents' final words, feeling deeply regretful.
The brothers learned their lesson and turned over a new leaf. The next year, they worked hard like their grandparents, and within a few years, they returned to prosperity, married wives, and had children.
To remember the lesson of laziness and ensure people never forget the value of diligence and thrift, from that time on, every eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, people ate porridge made from a mix of five grains. Because this day falls on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, it is called "La Ba porridge."
La Ba porridge is not only enjoyed by monks but is also popular among common people. During the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, this culinary tradition continued, with the Qing dynasty being particularly prevalent. There is a poem that says: "Every family cooks La Ba porridge on the eighth day, with hazelnuts and almonds dyed white. My proud son looks forward to good fortune, blessed by Buddha's protection endlessly." Zhou detailed in "Yanshan Past Affairs": "On the eighth day, temples and households make porridge with walnuts, pine nuts, mushrooms, persimmons, chestnuts, and call it La Ba porridge." Qing scholar Duncong wrote in "Yanjing Seasons Forgotten - La Ba Porridge": "La Ba porridge uses yellow rice, red rice, glutinous rice, rice, water chestnut rice, chestnuts, red cowpeas, peeled red date paste, boiled over fire, with dyed red almond kernels, apricot kernels, melon seeds, peanuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, and candy, brown sugar, raisins as toppings," giving it a distinct Beijing flavor. Yuan dynasty writer Sun Guochi wrote in "Yandu Travel Records": "On the eighth day of the twelfth month, porridge is given to the common people, made with rice and fruit. The more varieties, the better, following the custom of the Song dynasty." As a folk custom, eating La Ba porridge on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month celebrates the harvest and continues to this day. ...