From Soup to Nuts

"From Soup to Nuts" came into my mind.  Maybe someone said it last night at the Niagara-on-the-Lake Horticultural Society meeting.  These are great garden meetings - many people, many projects, much discussion.  It is as though I've been transported decades back in a time machine when gardens were vital to the social fabric of a town.  An example is their multi-year project is to plant daffodils for cancer in special gardens in town.  There are 100,000 daffodils ready to bloom.  The ceremony is this Sunday at 1:00pm. Back to "Soup to Nuts": This phrase stuck in my mind and I started to ponder it.  I know it is a metaphor for 'from beginning to end'.  We still serve soup as a first course.  But nuts?  The latter part of the 20th century did not have nuts as a dessert course.  What cookbooks have anything on the "nuts" course? Some of the references say 'desserts with nuts in them'.  If something is to have such a clear meaning, it should be universally understood.  I was still questioning desserts of nuts from the descriptions I read. I decided the plausible answer is at the site straightdope.com: Origin: For centuries, any foods served at the beginning or end of a meal stood for the entire thing: the start and finish and everything in between. This expression was “from eggs to apples” and “from pottage to cheese.” In the United States in the middle of the 20th century, the expression developed into “from soup to nuts.” At many meals, soup is often the first course and a dessert with nuts is sometimes the last. The expression does not have to refer to only to meals, however. It could be the selection of goods for sale or classes offered. ... According to most of the British authors I read, the last course of a meal is port and nuts. But only for the men, I believe. I think the women had to go sequester themselves elsewhere and drink coffee or something until the men got tired of drinking port and joined them. Which of course begs the question, how did *that* get started? At any rate this is a British custom, and “from soup to nuts” is an American idiom. But still it seems clear that in some form or another nuts were considered the last course in a good meal, while soup was the first. And I think that covers this one from soup to nuts. This is their warning at the bottom of the column.  It is a delight in itself: "STAFF REPORTS ARE WRITTEN BY THE STRAIGHT DOPE SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD, CECIL'S ONLINE AUXILIARY. THOUGH THE SDSAB DOES ITS BEST, THESE COLUMNS ARE EDITED BY ED ZOTTI, NOT CECIL, SO ACCURACYWISE YOU'D BETTER KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED." Today's picture is Wisteria.  I checked this one around the corner from me.  Many wisteria in Niagara are grown as small shrubs, like this one.  It is a mystery flower - there are no flower buds as though no wisteria will bloom.  And then - POP - plump little buds will appear.  We're in such a late spring, it may be a few weeks away.