Why Some People Refer To Cabbage Rolls As 'Pigs In A Blanket'

Regional differences in cooking can sometimes be a little confusing, especially if a dish shares the same name but includes vastly different ingredients and flavors. One good example is the glaring differences between the white and creamy New England clam chowder and the red and broth-y Manhattan version. They may be different, but at least they're both chowders. In the case of pigs in a blanket, most Americans think of the appetizer made of mini hot dogs or hot dog slices, wrapped in pastry that have graced many a party over the years.

Still, in some parts of the U.S., pigs in the blanket are a very different dish. If you live in certain areas of Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin, pigs in a blanket refer to cabbage rolls. This dish originates from Eastern and Central Europe, and is most commonly made from minced meat and rice or other grains wrapped in cooked cabbage leaves. For those Americans who call it pigs in a blanket, they often refer to hot dogs wrapped in pastry dough as wiener winks. Yes, like the sloppy Joe sometimes being called the slushburger in parts of North Dakota, our melting pot culture has produced some perplexing linguistic twists. And getting to the bottom of this colloquialism is no easy feat. 

In the U.S., the Polish version of cabbage rolls is probably the best known, although there are variations that come from across Europe, the Middle East,Asia, and the Jewish diaspora. The most common recipe is made from ground beef, pork, or a combination of the two, and rice, onion, garlic, and egg, all wrapped up in cabbage leaves and swimming in a tomato sauce. The recipe seems to have come to the U.S. with the influx of Europeans, especially Poles, at the turn of the 20th century.

The Polish name for cabbage rolls is golabki, which translates to "doves" or "pigeons." Other Central and Eastern European countries have similar names for their cabbage rolls, but none appear to be pig-related. Calling cabbage rolls pigeons is apparently a reference to an influential 19th century French dish made with actual pigeons. The use of pigs in a blanket for cabbage rolls is centered in areas where Polish and other Central and Eastern Europeans settled in the U.S., such as Chicago. At some point, "pigeons" became "pigs."

Looking into the history of pigs in a blanket, things get even murkier. In the 19th century, pigs in a blanket was typically a dish made of fried oysters wrapped in bacon. In the UK, pigs in a blanket are cocktail sausages wrapped in bacon, so perhaps the typical American dish of pastry-wrapped hot dogs derives from the British version. The earliest reference for sausages wrapped in pastry, strangely, comes from the U.S. Army. A War Department technical manual from 1944 includes a recipe titled "Pork Sausage Links (Pigs) in a Blanket."

In 1957, the highly influential "Betty Crocker's Cook Book for Boys and Girls" offered a version of "pigs in blankets" using full sized hotdogs wrapped in pastry, which may have helped spread the name and recipe across the U.S. While the name pigs in a blanket makes sense for a pork product wrapped in dough, ground pork in an actual blanket of cabbage also seems like a plausible use of the name for that dish.