What is it.... the game! Post unknown objects to ID... and to stump others!

Mesquite has bean pods not nuts. They're not especially hard even when dry. Dried ones make a good flour when ground up.

It's currently in Texas, Austin/Houston area. Not necessarily where it came from, as I don't know that the grandparents didn't move there from elsewhere, a lot of people did.

Mike Barkley wrote:Mesquite has bean pods not nuts. They're not especially hard even when dry. Dried ones make a good flour when ground up.

Good to know - I was given the impression you pretty much needed a hammer mill, but that may have been the flour grinding part of the process. I'm in the wrong ecosystem for mesquite, and have never met one, but if I thought they had any chance of growing here, I'd give it a go for their ability to tolerate drought (our summers) and their supposed ability to move water from the surface to underground when it rains. However, maybe that info was faulty too?

Pearl Sutton wrote:

Not necessarily where it came from, as I don't know that the grandparents didn't move there from elsewhere, a lot of people did.

I can remember as a child, my parents buying a mixed bag of nuts in the shell at Christmas time. I was too wimpy to open most of them, but there were a couple of light coloured, vaguely almond-shaped nuts that even Dad couldn't crack with the little nut-crackers we had. He used to take them down to the bench vice... the tool in the picture looks vaguely like a bench vice with a particular intention.

I would use a C-clamp to mount it on a table myself. If it wasn't being used on a daily basis, it probably didn't deserve prime real estate.

I have only ground it with a molcajete but I think any regular mill or coffee grinder would work just fine.

Doubtful the trees would survive your climate but you never know until you try.

Ok! We have an answer, and you all were right. Nut cracker, known to at least have cracked pecans.
No easy way to declare a winner, as multiple people earned the apple, so multiple apples are being awarded :D