When a Commercial Bread Slicer hit the market in 1928, it was a very big deal. To be perfectly clear, mankind has had the ability to cut bread for a long time. It’s not as if people just grabbed whole loaves and gnawed on them like apples for 6,000 years until 1928. But up until that point, people had to slice their own bread.
It became a mechanised process, with uniformly shaped and sliced loaves, and bags of sliced bread became a staple in American households in the 1930’s. The phrase itself probably comes from a Wonder Bread Ad Campaign. The Atlantic wrote a whole story all about this one.
This one has many interpretations. Some believe it started in a tradition in Dunmow England where the Dunmow Flitch was given every four years to a couple who impressed the town through their strength of fidelity. The prize? A big ol’ side of bacon.
However most believe the term derives from a 1906 lightweight boxing title match with Joe Gans. Bacon was a slang term for your body (and by extension your livelihood or income) since the 1700’s. Joe’s mother told her son before the fight, “Joe the eyes of the world are on you. Everybody says you ought to win. Peter Jackson will tell me the news and you bring home the bacon.” This quote was published in The New York Times, and caught on, creating one of the tastiest expressions ever.
Straight Outta My Kitchen