Next: about 21 Dec 2026
Yalda Night
The longest night, kept with pomegranate, watermelon, nuts and Hafez, with spiced fruit and saffron sweets on the table.
Spices for Yalda Night
On the longest night of the year, families stay up together, reading the poet Hafez and eating pomegranate, watermelon, dried fruit and nuts, with tea. The red fruit stands for the sun's rebirth. Spices appear as saffron in sweet rice and as cinnamon and cardamom in hot tea and sherbets; ash and stews are made with turmeric and dried herbs. Yalda is also an old Zoroastrian and Manichaean festival, and its food has been preserved at home.
The spices
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Yalda Night" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Cardamom: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Saffron: Hubertl, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Cinnamon: Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0, source