When did pigs in blankets become a thing?

[Apolloanddaphne]

When I was growing up (in the 60's and 70's, east of Scotland) we had chipolatas and streaky bacon rolls but they were never wrapped together, they were cooked separately. Then suddenly they seemed to be wrapped together and called pigs in blankets. When did this transition happen? Was it always there and my family just missed the memo back in the day?

We called them 'sausages wrapped in bacon' (catchy!) but we had them all through my 80s childhood.

I was eating kilted sausages in Dundee in the 70's. Highlight of Christmas along with my Gran's heavy on the sherry trifle.
DH was also eating them in Fife.

Devil's on horseback are prunes wrapped in bacon.
Angels on horseback are oysters wrapped in bacon.
That was it. The oysters were tinned ones.

They became universal when ready meals and pre prepped things came in.

I've never had a 'pre prepped' one in my life! You buy chipolatas, cut up bacon and wrap it - that's how I've done it my whole life. No need for ready meals or pre-prepped food at all.

When I was a girl, pigs in blankets were sausages baked with a twist of pastry around them. I don't remember the sausage & bacon combo from my childhood at all, though some added chipolatas to the roast turkey. We always had a sausage meat stuffing for turkey, so didn't need extra sausages.

I'd say the bacon wrapped pigs in blankets really gained in popularity about twelve or fifteen years ago when supermarkets realised they could add value to simple cheap ingredients by selling ready prepared items.

They were exclusively a school Christmas dinner thing when I was child, late 80s/early 90s.

I still feel a bit like they're cheap and nasty convenience food. Although I like them!

In our family we've always done sausage meat or sausage meat stuffing though, maybe that was why?

This is definitely a Mandela effect thing.
I only became aware of them a few years.

Yes... because it's totally impossible that different people could have different experiences!

Helping to make the sausages wrapped in bacon was always a highlight of my childhood christmas.

We enjoyed them in 1970's

I am 66 and have always had the chipolatas and bacon curls separately . Lovely crisp streaky bacon and good quality chipolatas!

I don't like them as pigs in blankets and the sausage under the bacon is always the wrong colour/texture.

We always had them in the 60s and 70s, only they weren't called pigs in blankets. They were just called bacon- wrapped sausages and I don't think they were available ready made then.
I still make my own, it takes very little time and they freeze perfectly. (I made 48 last night!).
Bacon-wrapped sausages are mentioned in the Christmas section of an old cook book of mine, published in 1971.

I was born in 1966 in the East Midlands.
The name pigs in blankets wasn't used in our house at all.
Chipolatas were cooked around the turkey (or more usually a capon) and the bacon was laid on top of the bird to stop it drying out.

I've only used the term pigs in blankets for maybe 20 years? Before that it was "sausages wrapped in bacon".

They’re not an American thing, as their pigs in blankets are different. More like a sausage roll. But it’s frankfurters and pastry

I am 52 and I can't remember a Christmas without pigs in blankets!

Always just bacon & sausages to us!

We often have Berner sausages instead.

Christmas dinner isn't the same without pigs in blankets in our family. There are 6 trays of them sat in the freezer ready for next week, as well as bread sauce, cranberry sauce, stuffing & streaky bacon on top of the turkey to keep it moist. They are always more tasty the day after & there is always a fight for the last one.

I grew up the 90s and 00s and don't remember having them then. Obviously from responses here many people did, but for me they feel like a recent innovation.

I might go old school this year and do them separately.

on the 8th day after God created earth

we had chipolatas and streaky bacon rolls but they were never wrapped together, they were cooked separately

I'm 40 and this is what we had too. It's still how my mum does it.

I was a child in the late 1940s/50s, there was no such thing back then. No surprise I guess because food rationing lasted until 1954. It sounds from replies like the 1970s are a good bet.

My family all missed the memo, OP. Felt a bit stupid when we found out, but soon caught up!

sausages in kilts in the 70s for us.

Making them was always my job on Christmas day, right from when I was about 6, and I'm 40 now. I was given a jumbo pack of chipolatas and another one of streaky bacon, and the big kitchen scissors, and told to get on with it (my mum had a typical Northern 80s attitude to health and safety). However - we always called them 'sausages in bacon', and we still do to this day. I'm one of those hypocritical meat eaters who prefers not to be reminded of pigs while I'm eating things that are made from them.

I remember them from many years back, think we called them pigs in blankets then (and I'm old). I think they're having a trendy moment, recently seen footlong ones in Sainsburys, and Lidl are advertising yard long ones!

70'/80's southerner child here. We've never had them. The sausages were cooked separately and the streaky bacon came off the top of the roast chicken or turkey halfway through (triggering an epic scavenger war between the three of us kids to get a piece before it was gone). One rolled around the other is a mystery to me and not something I do now I'm an adult.