Squirrelling awayRipe and harvested in the autumn, nuts have always been a traditional autumnal and winter food.

They store well, have a long shelf-life and provide, for their size and weight, impressive quantities of nutrients and healthy fats. A goodsupply of these sustained many people through the long, cold European winters, when there wasn't much else around to eat. Their importance as well as their convenient and attractive packaging also led to their use as winter and Christmas ornamentation

Dental dilemmas

The packaging, however, presents a problem. How do you smash the shell without smashing the valuable nut inside? In the days before dentists, those with any teeth at all were fortunate; if the teeth left were hard, and the jaw firm, shells could be cracked by biting them open

The human touch

But what about those with wobbly teeth and gingivitis? Mechanical nutcrackers, invented in grey areas of history, did the job for them. Although carved from wood, there is no evidence to suggest they were created in the form of humans until the mid-18th century, when specimens resembling those we know from the ballet, with moveable large jaws to hold and crack the nut, emerged in the Erzgebirge region of what is now Germany, a part of central Europe traditionally known for its wood carvings. The nutcrackers were usually carved in the shape of authoritarian figures, such as kings, soldiers and public guardians of order: the ones best able to crack the hardest nuts