Joking about Laba garlic and frozen ice

 

Joking about Laba garlic and frozen ice

 

Joking about Laba Garlic

 

For old Beijingers, as soon as the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month arrives, the New Year atmosphere gets stronger day by day. In most areas of North China, there is a custom of soaking garlic in vinegar on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, which is called "Laba Garlic".

According to the old man, the word "garlic" in Laba garlic has the same pronunciation as the word "suan". This is the day when various businesses will close their accounts. Calculate the income and expenditure for the year, and you can see the profits and losses, including foreign debts and foreign debts. , all must be calculated clearly on this day, and this is what "Laba Calculation" is all about.

On Laba day, a creditor who wants to pay a debt has to deliver a message to someone who owes him money, so he should be prepared to pay back the money. There is a folk proverb in Beijing: "Laba porridge and Laba garlic are used to deliver letters when settling accounts; those who owe debts pay back money." Later, some people who owed money to others used garlic instead of the word "count" to express taboo and avoid the word "count" in settling accounts. "The word, in fact, what you owe others must be paid back after all. As the New Year approaches in old Beijing, there are vendors selling spicy vegetables in the streets and alleys, but there are no vendors selling Laba garlic. Why is this? Think about it, you have to shout to sell Laba garlic. How to shout? Just shout "Laba garlic!" The debtor's heart skipped a beat when he heard the shout, why are there still shouts on the street to collect debts? Besides, who does you, a small businessman, care about? It’s good if people don’t settle with you, so you can’t go out to the streets to shout about Laba garlic. Every household makes the Laba garlic by themselves and calculates for themselves how they will spend this year.

To soak Laba garlic, you need to use purple-skinned garlic and rice vinegar. Peel off the old skin of the garlic cloves, soak them in rice vinegar, put them in a small jar and seal them tightly. Unseal them on New Year's Eve. The garlic cloves are bright green, and the garlic, spicy, acetic and sour aromas melt together and hit your nostrils. It is the best condiment for eating dumplings and can also be used in cold dishes. It has a unique taste.

Why do we need to use purple garlic for soaking Laba garlic? The small purple-skinned garlic cloves are soaked thoroughly, the garlic cloves are hard and solid, and the garlic is crispy and fragrant.

 

Why do we need to use rice vinegar to soak Laba garlic? The color of rice vinegar is light, and the color of soaked garlic remains as before, orange and emerald green, the taste is moderately sour and spicy, and the aroma is strong and slightly sweet. The old vinegar-smoked garlic will turn black after soaking in vinegar, the garlic cloves are not green enough, and the taste is poor, especially the smoked vinegar, which has a slightly pasty taste. Maybe this is its characteristic.

 

Laba frozen ice

 

On the seventh night of the twelfth lunar month in China, some families have to "freeze ice" for their children. In a bowl of water, the adults carved various flowers from carrots and white radish, and used coriander as green leaves, and placed them on the outdoor windowsill. Early the next morning, if there are lumps on the ice in the bowl, it heralds a bumper wheat harvest in the coming year. Then pour the ice cubes out of the bowl. They are colorful, crystal clear, and really beautiful. The children each had their hands together, playing and sucking at the same time.

In some places, people usually use steel basins to ladle water to freeze, and then take the ice out of the basins during the Laba Festival and break the ice into pieces. It is said that the ice on this day is magical. If you eat it, you will not have stomachaches for the next year.

It is said that some farmers go to river ditches and ponds to make ice as soon as they get up early in the morning. They pour the ice cubes into their own fields or manure piles to pray for good weather and good harvests in the coming year, expressing the working people's good wishes for a good harvest. .

 

Laba Tofu

 

Tofu is a folk specialty in Qianxian County, Anhui Province. Around the Laba Festival on the eve of the Spring Festival, every household in Qianxian County will dry tofu. The people call this naturally sun-dried tofu "Laba Tofu".

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Northern Laba Noodles

 

In some places in northern China that do not produce or produce little rice, people do not eat Laba porridge, but eat Laba noodles. The next day, make sautee with various fruits and vegetables, roll out the noodles, and on the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the whole family will eat Laba noodles.

 

Feed the jujube tree with Laba porridge

 

There is also the custom of feeding jujube trees with Laba porridge in the Central Plains area. Use a knife or ax to cut the bark of the jujube tree, and paste the Laba rice porridge into the ax marks, which is called feeding the jujube tree. In this way, the jujube tree can bear more fruits next year.

The folk proverb goes: "One ax to cut will make five stones; one knife to cut will make ten knots." This shows people's wish for a good harvest.