So it’s not surprising that nuts are featured in many traditional holiday recipes, whether you’re rolling up a nutty rugelach or walnut roll, making crisp hazelnut meringue cookies, or whipping up nutty fruitcakes or chestnut stuffings. Nuts became a symbol of good luck, the nut bowl passed at winter feasts to share good fortune with guests.
In ancient Rome, a good nut harvest signaled a fertile future, so nuts were scattered at weddings and at the winter solstice festival of Saturnalia. Who doesn’t wait for The Nutcracker ballet or the visit from Saint Nick, that bearded bearer of nuts, oranges and sweets?
But you’ll still find freshly-harvested nuts in the shell around the holidays, because the tradition of eating whole nuts at this time of year runs deep. These days, elaborate nutcrackers are often more decorative than practical, as nuts come pre-shelled in giant bags from wholesale supermarkets all year round. They were piled into wooden bowls with elaborate crackers and dangerous-looking metal picks for noshing, with just the right amount of energy required to extract the sweet nutmeats to prevent over indulging. Nuts were exotic imports from around the world - fat, almost impenetrable black Brazil nuts bulbous walnuts smooth, shiny pecans and hazelnuts. When I was a kid, cracking through a big bowl of nuts still enclosed in their hard shells was a holiday tradition.
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