To Bring Home The Bacon

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To Bring Home The Bacon : Phrases

Meaning:

To triumphantly achieve some plan or object, perhaps by winning a prize or race.


Example:

It is only he who brought home the bacon.


Origin:

There are two possible origins to this saying. The first goes back several hundred years to the village of Dunmow in Essex where, it is said, in AD 1111 a noble woman offered a prize of a side of bacon, known locally as a flitch, to any man from anywhere in England who could honestly say that he had had complete marital harmony for the preceding year and a day. In over 500 years there were only eight winners. The prize was re-established in the mid 19th century (1858) but ceased to be offered with the closure of the local bacon factory in the 1980s.

An alternative explanation comes from the ancient sport of catching a greased pig at country fairs - the winner kept the pig.

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