As promised a few weeks ago, here is the sequel to Pigs Part 1. To go the whole hog is to not hold back at all, to not do something by halves. Then on a culinary note, if you’re ham-fisted, you’re very clumsy and if you’re a ham actor, you’re a bad actor. If you’re served pigs in blankets for dinner, depending on whether you’re in the UK, the US or somewhere else in the world you will be eating, respectively, cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon or cocktail sausages wrapped in pastry (which the Brits, well known for their culinary arts refuse to accept, since those are clearly sausage rolls!) and if you’re not already completely confused, the original ‘pigs in blankets’ were actually pickled oysters wrapped in bacon, a treat that is known these days as ‘angels on horseback’.
But let’s get back to pigs. If you don’t believe the chances of something happening, you might make that clear by saying: ‘Yeah, and pigs might fly!’. Similar to hell freezing over but much more interesting imagery. As everyone knows, you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear – turn something ugly or inferior into something attractive or valuable. Lastly (but not because I’ve already exhausted all the expressions involving pigs) there’s casting pearls before swine. To be continued.