Did the name first appear in a 1957 Betty Crocker cookbook?

A 1957 Betty Crocker children's cookbook is real and the claim is repeated widely, but the name is much older than that. It is in print in an American cookbook in 1880 and in California newspapers from January 1887.

Is it the same as the British Pigs in Blankets Day?

No. Britain marks its own day on 12 December, and the dish there is a small sausage wrapped in bacon rather than one baked in dough.

National Pigs in a Blanket Day

Next celebratedSaturday, April 24, 2027

A small sausage in a coat of warm dough, and nothing else to it: that is National Pigs in a Blanket Day. Roll a batch and let everyone eat them with their fingers while they are still hot.

See how to celebrate

Countdown to the day

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Last updated September 7, 2026 · by the Holiday Calendar TeamHave an update or spot an error?

YEARLY DATEApril 24

OBSERVED INUnited States

CATEGORYFood

SUBCATEGORYSide Dishes

ORIGIN

Community Origin

FOUNDING ENTITY

Not documented

FIRST OBSERVED

Not documented

HOW THE HOLIDAY CAME TO BE

A day for the American side of the name.

No founder, proclamation, or establishing record for the April 24 observance was located in the indexes searched. By December 2013 the date was known well enough outside the United States that the people who launched Britain's own pigs in blankets day gave the American one as their reason for wanting theirs.

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INTRO

In Britain the blanket is made of bacon

National Pigs in a Blanket Day is fixed to a dish the name has not always described. In 1880 an American cookbook printed Little Pigs in Blankets and meant an oyster.

The recipe is Maria Parloa's, from the New Cook Book and Marketing Guide, and there is no sausage in it at all. A large oyster is seasoned, wrapped in a thin slice of fat English bacon and pinned shut with a toothpick. The book's index files it with the oysters.

The dish has changed under that name more than once since, and it is still not the same dish everywhere.

ORIGINS

Pigs in a Blanket Day history

INTRODUCTION

In July 1892 the Morning Tribune in San Luis Obispo advertised a live oyster grotto on Monterey Street. It told readers exactly what to order: little pigs in blankets, with no explanation offered.

The phrase turns up in eleven matches in the California Digital Newspaper Collection between 1887 and 1896, and every one that describes the dish describes an oyster.

CHAPTER 01

Oysters on a toothpick

Gertrude Strohm reprinted the recipe in The Universal Cookery Book of 1887, under a credit line naming Miss Maria Parloa's New Cook-Book. That compilation is the copy usually remembered; the original is seven years older.

A household column in at least three California papers in 1890 gave the name a nationality. It described the oyster dish as one "called by our English cousins Pigs in Blankets", and added that it would rather do without the name.

CHAPTER 02

The sausage takes the name

The singular form Americans use now is a latecomer. A Santa Rosa paper used it in February 1942 for 600 hot dogs cooked inside special buns for soldiers. A Long Beach paper used it in 1949 for sausages wrapped in pancakes.

What settled it was a kitchen manual. The War Department's Army Recipes of 15 August 1944 gives a method for pork sausage links baked in biscuit dough. Each piece of dough covers one link, sealed with water and brushed with egg.

The manual works in batches of 100 servings, at 35 pounds of links each. Its 1946 edition added a second dish under the same name, for field kitchens, where the sausages are battered and dropped into hot fat.

CHAPTER 03

The day, and the day Britain built on it

Britain never made the swap. A Yorkshire food blog launched a British pigs in blankets day for 12 December 2013 with the retailer Farmison and Co, and said why: the dish already had a national food day in the United States.

Two years later the dish reached the floor of the Commons. Chris Grayling told the House on 17 December 2015 that many turkeys would be gracing tables that Christmas, possibly with pigs in blankets, except in the Rhondda, where the sausages are thrown away.

The American day that launch pointed at has no author on record. The earliest printed use of its name in the HathiTrust full-text index sits in a volume published in 2006.

TIMELINE

Timeline

Parloa prints the recipe

Maria Parloa's cookbook gives 'Little Pigs in Blankets' as large oysters wrapped in fat English bacon and fried.

The phrase reaches the papers

The Daily Alta California of 2 January carries the earliest match in the California Digital Newspaper Collection, in a column explaining how to make them from oysters.

An oyster bar advertises them

A Morning Tribune advertisement in San Luis Obispo points readers to a live oyster grotto on Monterey Street and tells them what to ask for.

Hot dogs take the name

A Santa Rosa paper reports 600 'pigs in a blanket' hot dogs cooked inside special buns and served to soldiers.

The Army writes it down

War Department manual TM 10-412 prints recipe No. 333, pork sausage links rolled in biscuit dough and baked for 100 servings.

Britain starts its own day

A Yorkshire food blog and the retailer Farmison and Co launch a British pigs in blankets day for 12 December.

WHY THIS DAY MATTERS

Why We Love National Pigs in a Blanket Day

CHRISTMAS

58% of surveyed consumers call them essential at Christmas.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board reported in December 2024 that 58% of consumers surveyed called pigs in blankets essential to the Christmas meal, as important to them as stuffing or Yorkshire puddings. That is a national attachment to a dish whose American day falls in April.

LANGUAGE

The oyster is still in the dictionary

Collins still lists 'oysters, chicken livers, etc., wrapped in bacon, skewered, and broiled or sautéed' as a sense of pigs in blankets in American English. That is a nineteenth-century American supper dish still sitting in a twenty-first-century dictionary.

INDUSTRY

The wrapper has a history of its own

Pillsbury dates its crescent rolls to 1965. Cambridge Dictionary's American example still sends the cook to refrigerated biscuit or croissant dough, a shelf product younger than the dish it wraps.

This is a nice relish for lunch or tea; and, garnished with parsley, is a pretty one.

Maria ParloaAuthor, Miss Parloa's New Cook Book and Marketing Guide, 1880

So, will the Minister guarantee that everyone who wants their pigs in blankets this Christmas will be able to get them?

Lord McNicol of West KilbrideMember of the House of Lords, 14 October 2021

GOOD TO KNOW

National Pigs in a Blanket Day Around the World

United States

Cambridge Dictionary's US sense is a sausage, usually a hot dog, with soft pastry wrapped around it

United Kingdom

the same words mean a small sausage cooked with bacon wrapped around it, and the dictionary's own example puts them on the Christmas table

Germany

Duden gives a cookery sense of im Schlafrock, baked in a coat of dough, with Äpfel im Schlafrock as the example

GET INVOLVED

How to Celebrate National Pigs in a Blanket Day

Bake a tray of the American kind

Wrap each small sausage in dough, seal the edge by moistening it with water, and brush the outside with beaten egg. The Army's own manual bakes them for about 20 minutes at 400 F.

WRAP

Wrap the next batch in bacon instead

Swap the dough for a slice of bacon and you have the British version, the one that turns up beside a Christmas turkey. Cook them until the bacon crisps.

COOK

Cook the 1880 one for comparison

Season a large oyster, wrap it in a thin slice of fat bacon, pin it with a toothpick and fry it for about two minutes. The book serves them on small pieces of toast with the skewers left in.

DIP

Dip them before they go in the oven

The British day's launch post suggests dipping the wrapped sausages before they are baked. Honey with wholegrain mustard, maple syrup with Dijon, and mango chutney with sesame seeds are three of the combinations it lists.

READ

Read the 1880 recipe in the original

The full text of Miss Parloa's New Cook Book and Marketing Guide is free to read at the Internet Archive. The recipe sits at page 120, among the oyster dishes.

Test your knowledge

How well do you know National Pigs in a?

1 / 8

In an 1880 American cookbook, what were 'little pigs in blankets' made of?

Answer

No. It is an unofficial food day, and the Federal Register carries no document naming it, so April 24 is a normal working day in the United States.

COLOPHON

Sources

How we know what’s on this page. References, not endorsements.

15sources

11primary records

9independently dated

Primary records

Internet Archive1880

Miss Parloa's New Cook Book and Marketing Guide

The 1880 recipe for little pigs in blankets, oysters wrapped in bacon, at page 120.