"Bringing home the bacon" is a phrase that probably originated in the village of Great Dunmow in England.  In the twelfth century, the parish church of the village promised a side of bacon (called a flitch) to any man who could convince a jury of six local bachelors and six local maidens that he and his wife had "not wished themselves unmarried again" for a year and a day.  The flitch trials as they are still called are held every four years to this day.  It even gets a mention in Geoffrey Chaucer's famous Canterbury Tales.  However the phrase originated, bringing home the bacon is a common expression we use in reference to bringing home money for the family, not a literal side of bacon.  But I think this phrase reveals a lot about our culture.

We are so inextricably tied to food and to eating that even a casual phrase for making money is one involving food.  We all have to eat to live, and some of us do the reverse of living to eat.