This year, Laba Day, December 8 in to the lunar calendar, will fall on Tuesday, January 11. Celebrating traditionally involves a bowl of Laba porridge among both northerners and southerners, while Beijingers like to mix it up by also munching on preserved garlic and sticky candies on this special day.

Laba porridge has many different origin stories, says Zhao Shu, a well-known expert on Chinese folklore and researcher at the Beijing Research Institute of Culture and History.

"One popular explanation is that it is the day of celebrating the eight gods who are related to farming, including the earth, sun and moon. It is the day of celebrating harvest and expressing gratitude to the gods," Zhao said. "Chinese people have a long tradition of storing their harvested goods in winter, and thus using di erent kinds of grains to make porridge. Laba day foretells the beginning of a new round of spring planting." Another story is Buddhism related: "Laba Day is the enlightenment day of Buddha Sakyamuni. Another version goes back to Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), who invented this dish in jail before he defeated others and became the ruler."

Eight, ba, is a lucky number in Chinese culture, phonetically similar to "make a fortune," and so eight kinds of ingredients are used in making the porridge, Zhao said. "Different places have different ways of making porridge, according to local taste," Zhao said. "But red bean is always included in the ingredients. Red can dispel evil factors and bring you good luck."

Another Laba food is Laba garlic, which is particularly popular in northern China. "The temperature on Laba Day usually drops very low, so it's very good for making it," said Zhang Xia, a 70-year-old local Beijnger who still keeps that tradition on Laba Day. "It is quite easy to make. Garlic, vinegar and sugar are the only three things you need. It takes about 10 days." Zhang says garlic is very healthy, perfect to eat along with dumplings, the most popular food people eat during the Spring Festival. "Garlic in Chinese, suan, shares the same pronunciation with 'calculate,'" Zhao said. "Families, especially businessmen, usually make a thorough calculation of the whole year's income and expenditures or loans to see if they made money or not on that day, and thus such a tradition is maintained."

Another snack Beijingers like to eat is tanggua, a very sticky candy made of yellow rice and barley shoots that is hard and crispy when frozen, and extremely soft and sticky when warmed up. Eating tanggua is actually a very typical tradition on December 23 (in the Chinese lunar calendar), but it has started getting popular on the Laba Day already, because it presages the coming Spring Festival, and people want to get a jump on all the sweet snacks.

Sticky candy like tanggua is an interesting tradition: "The kitchen god will report to the Jade Emperor about the good and bad things people did, and so people worship him with very sticky, sweet snacks to keep his mouth sweet in front of the emperor," Zhao explained. "And the sticky mouth will also prevent him from telling too many bad things."