This keeps coming up on Twitter and in the comments at other posts, so let's talk about (BrE) pigs in blankets/(more common in AmE) pigs in a blanket (singular for both: pig in a blanket).
British pigs in blankets are small sausages wrapped in bacon (and cooked!). They are delicious. They're traditionally served alongside turkey as part of Christmas dinner. (For me, they almost make up for the fact that Brussels sprouts are also a traditional part of Christmas dinner in England.) The usual sausage involved is a chipolata, which we could call a BrE word because it's hardly heard in the US (16 UK hits on the Corpus of Global Web-Based English, but zero US ones). But then again, it's not that there's another word for it in AmE, so better to call it a UK-and-not-US thing, rather than a BrE word. Basically, all the non-imported sausages (and even some of the imported ones) are different in the UK and US.
These are (increasingly, I think) found in US cooking, but I haven't heard them called pigs in blankets in the US. My brother, with no prodding from happy me, has started serving them as pre-dinner snack at Christmas time, and we call them sausages wrapped in bacon. Now that he does that, pretty much the only thing I like better about UK Christmas than US Christmas is the fact that I don't have to travel for my pigs in blankets. (Sorry, mince pie fans.)
In AmE, pigs in a blanket are usually small sausages wrapped in dough (and cooked!). They are delicious. When I was a kid, this usually involved (AmE) cocktail franks* (also cocktail wieners, little smokies, and general-English cocktail sausages) wrapped in the kind of Pillsbury dough that comes in a tube. I think that when I was a kid, this usually involved the dinner-roll dough, but nowadays I see most of the recipes online (including Pillsbury's) involve their crescent-roll dough. (Even though I should know better now, I'm still dangerous around a basket of freshly baked Pillsbury crescent rolls. There's no point in calling them croissants, though. A crescent roll is like a croissant that's been photocopied 100 times and then had hydrogenated palm oil added.)
* Note that on the Oscar Mayer package, the sausages are now wrapped in bacon. Trendy.
The use of crescent-roll pastry, rather than a bread dough, takes American pigs in blankets a step closer to the British sausage roll, which is a sausage (often just the sausage meat) encased in puff pastry. But to my senses, US pigs in blankets and UK sausage rolls are very different things, due to the differences in sausage spicing, sausage/pastry ratios and coverage, shape, etc.). The ones in the photo here are 'mini sausage rolls', but a non-mini sausage roll contains as much sausage as a typical hot-dog-style sausage.
The final type of pig in a blanket is an American breakfast food: American-style breakfast links wrapped in an American-style pancake. They are delicious. This is the least common meaning for the expression, but one you used to be able to find on an IHOP menu. The key thing to know about these is that American breakfast sausages are nothing like any breakfast sausage in the UK. They have a lot of sage, are much slimmer than most UK sausages and sometimes casing-less, and are really well complemented by maple syrup. If you order sausage in a US breakfast diner, you may well be asked links or patties? If you've ever seen a Sausage McMuffin, you've seen a sausage (AmE) patty. You get those by slicing them like salami (but thicker!) from a big ol' package of sausage meat.
(This paragraph added in response to comments) The plural pigs in blankets is more common in BrE, while AmE tends toward pigs in a blanket. In the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the ratio is about 1:4. That said, I think the plural blankets is found more in print—the COCA examples include a lot of spoken ones and fictional dialogue. Looking at Google Books ngrams, pigs in a blanket seems to be a rather recent plural.)
Now comes THE BIG TWIST IN THE TALE. The term pig in a blanket is originally AmE, but it had nothing to do with sausages at the beginning. The OED has its first recorded use of the term showing up in 1882 and referring to oysters wrapped in bacon. This dish shows up slightly earlier in UK cook(ery) books with the name it still has: angels on horseback. The first record of a sausage-related meaning is from 1926, and refers to a sausage in a roll, rather than one baked into dough, and that meaning continues on in the 1940s. (I've found additional examples as well as the OED's up to 1948.) Apparently, the first known use of it in the "rolled in dough" meaning occurred in 1957 in Betty Crocker's Cooking for Kids. Essentially, it looks like the current AmE meaning coincides with the wide availability of packaged refrigerator doughs.
As for the BrE meaning, it's not hard to imagine the AmE term coming over to the UK and being re-interpreted. It would not have been needed for oysters-in-bacon, since BrE already had an equally weird term for that. Sausages, usually made of pork in the UK, make a lot more sense as a 'pig' than an oyster does.
Other sausage-related posts for your information, edification, or appetization: (Is that a word? It is now.)
on hot dogs
on red hots
on baked goods (pigs in blankets briefly mentioned)
on breakfast
on bangers
on pudding (including black pudding)
PS: Nancy Friedman has shared this glorious picture of the 1957 Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls (Betty Crocker = an American institution), showing (a) that the use of mini sausages was a later thing, and (b) the traditional plural form. I love the hat-tipping wiener and frank—and the explanation of the difference.
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| Recipe at BBC Good Food |
These are (increasingly, I think) found in US cooking, but I haven't heard them called pigs in blankets in the US. My brother, with no prodding from happy me, has started serving them as pre-dinner snack at Christmas time, and we call them sausages wrapped in bacon. Now that he does that, pretty much the only thing I like better about UK Christmas than US Christmas is the fact that I don't have to travel for my pigs in blankets. (Sorry, mince pie fans.)
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| Recipe at food.com |
* Note that on the Oscar Mayer package, the sausages are now wrapped in bacon. Trendy.
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| Recipe at BBC Good Food |
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| Recipe at Splendid Table |
(This paragraph added in response to comments) The plural pigs in blankets is more common in BrE, while AmE tends toward pigs in a blanket. In the Corpus of Contemporary American English, the ratio is about 1:4. That said, I think the plural blankets is found more in print—the COCA examples include a lot of spoken ones and fictional dialogue. Looking at Google Books ngrams, pigs in a blanket seems to be a rather recent plural.)
Now comes THE BIG TWIST IN THE TALE. The term pig in a blanket is originally AmE, but it had nothing to do with sausages at the beginning. The OED has its first recorded use of the term showing up in 1882 and referring to oysters wrapped in bacon. This dish shows up slightly earlier in UK cook(ery) books with the name it still has: angels on horseback. The first record of a sausage-related meaning is from 1926, and refers to a sausage in a roll, rather than one baked into dough, and that meaning continues on in the 1940s. (I've found additional examples as well as the OED's up to 1948.) Apparently, the first known use of it in the "rolled in dough" meaning occurred in 1957 in Betty Crocker's Cooking for Kids. Essentially, it looks like the current AmE meaning coincides with the wide availability of packaged refrigerator doughs.
As for the BrE meaning, it's not hard to imagine the AmE term coming over to the UK and being re-interpreted. It would not have been needed for oysters-in-bacon, since BrE already had an equally weird term for that. Sausages, usually made of pork in the UK, make a lot more sense as a 'pig' than an oyster does.
Other sausage-related posts for your information, edification, or appetization: (Is that a word? It is now.)
on hot dogs
on red hots
on baked goods (pigs in blankets briefly mentioned)
on breakfast
on bangers
on pudding (including black pudding)
PS: Nancy Friedman has shared this glorious picture of the 1957 Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls (Betty Crocker = an American institution), showing (a) that the use of mini sausages was a later thing, and (b) the traditional plural form. I love the hat-tipping wiener and frank—and the explanation of the difference.
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