Soup to nuts

I was on a conference call this morning at work when someone used the phrase "soup to nuts". I had never heard such and was pretty sure he was making it up. Wrong!

"Soup to nuts" is an American English idiom conveying the meaning of "from beginning to end". It comes from the description of a full course dinner, in which courses progress from soup to a dessert of nuts. It is comparable to expressions in other languages, such as the Latin phrase ab ovo usque ad mala ("from the egg to the apples"), describing the typical Roman meal.

I guess I didn't recognize it because I NEVER eat nuts for dessert!