soup to nuts

Soup to nuts is an obscure English figure of speech meaning "the full gamut", "start to finish", "the whole range", or "does it all".

Why this expression? Apparently it refers to a full meal, entrée to dessert; starting with a soup course, and ending with nuts, with lots of other dishes in between. The Roman version was apparently "from eggs to apples", or in Latin, "ab ovo usque ad mala". No doubt the Romans got a fair amount of use from this phrase, since they were big on extravagant feasts (which apparently usually started with eggs and ended with apples).

For instance, you could say: "C# is not a specialised programming language, but a soup-to-nuts platform", or "The lecture covered all aspects of ornithology, soup-to-nuts".

Soup to Nuts is also the title of a movie, released in 1930, staring Larry Fine, Shemp Howard, and Moe Howard; later collectively known as The Three Stooges.