The phrase "bringing home the bacon" has nothing to do with bacon. Back in the 12th century, the prior of the church at Little Dunmow in Essex, England, offered a "flitch" (or side) of bacon to any couples who could prove that after a year and a day of marriage they had "not wisht themselves unmarried again". These "marriage trials" are still held every four years in Great Dunmow, Essex. Though some people think this is the origin of the expression "bringing home the bacon", it appears to have a more recent history.
"Bacon" has been a slang term for body (and by extension livelihood) since the 17th century, but the whole phrase seems to have first appeared in a 1906 news article about a boxing match between Joe Gans and "Battling" Oliver Nelson. The Post-Standard newspaper in New York reported: "Before the fight Gans received a telegram from his mother: '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."' Gans indeed won the fight. Whether he took home some actual bacon is not recorded though.
