Festival food

Laba Festival falls during the depths of winter, which makes it an ideal season for storing food. The harvest is in, and people can turn their attention to preparing and enjoying a wide array of delicious dishes. The most popular meal in the festival is Laba porridge (also called Eight Treasures Porridge), a specialty that is usually made with at least eight ingredients which represent the people's prayers for harvest.

Virtually every household in China eats Laba porridge on the day. Filled with nuts and dried fruit, today's Laba porridge is both tastier and more appealing to the eye than that of the past.

In addition to Laba porridge, many different types of pickled vegetables and special dishes are popular during the festival, including garlic pickled in vinegar and pickled Chinese cabbage. In northern Shaanxi Province, it is obligatory to eat Laba noodle soup, made with eight different shredded ingredients. In the Tongguan-Lintong region of the province, Laba noodle soup is made with hot chili peppers. Hot Laba wine is also popular all over China during the festival.

Nutrition benefit

The custom of eating Laba porridge is not only an expression of respect for Buddha and the ancestral spirits. Laba porridge is also a very nourishing and healthy food. In his encyclopedic classic of herbal medicine Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica), eminent Ming Dynasty physician Li Shizhen states that rice porridge "increases the life force, produces saliva, nourishes the spleen and stomach and resolves sweating due to weak constitution or health."

Chinese traditional festivals

China possesses many traditional holidays, of which Spring Festival is the most important and the most exciting. An extended celebration of the Lunar New Year that lasts for several weeks, Spring Festival encompasses the Laba Festival, Little New Year, Lunar New Year's Eve, Lunar New Year's Day and the Lantern Festival. Every year, with the coming of the last month of the lunar year, the holiday spirit fills the land. The Laba Festival, which falls on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, marks the official start of Spring Festival.