do you know what's Baker's dozen is ?

yanlizkurt · November 19, 2007

Baker's dozen

A baker's dozen, also known as a long dozen, is 13, one more than a proper dozen. The expression found its genesis in 13th-century England.

It is also known as Devil's dozen, because 13 is considered to be an unlucky number.

Origin

The oldest known source and most probable origin for the expression "baker's dozen" dates to the 13th century in one of the earliest English statutes, instituted during the reign of Henry III (r. 1216-1272), called the Assize of Bread and Ale. Bakers who were found to have shortchanged customers could be liable to severe punishment. To guard against the punishment of losing a hand to an axe, a baker would give 13 for the price of 12, to be certain of not being known as a cheat. Specifically, the practice of baking 13 items for an intended dozen was to prevent "short measure", on the basis that one of the 13 could be lost, eaten, burnt or ruined in some way, leaving the baker with the original dozen. The practice can be seen in the guild codes of the Worshipful Company of Bakers in London.

Many scholars have posited that the thirteenth item in the Baker's dozen was a superstition related to the sacrifice of the last item to the devil. Thus propitiated, the devil would not curse the original dozen. Often the thirteenth item would be marked with an X, or the letters NM (Latin for "non-mandicatus").

Modern

While modern bakers no longer fear medieval law, they have found other reasons for a baker's dozen, as seen in the tidy way 13 disks (loaves, cookies, biscuits, etc.) can pack a rectangle (baking tray) of appropriate proportions. Modern standard sized packing trays have a 3:2 aspect ratio, and the most efficient two-dimensional array is hexagonal close packing, which has sixfold symmetry, such that each baked item is equidistant from its six nearest neighbors. The corners of a cookie sheet heat up and cool off faster than the edges and interior, so any item placed near a corner will not bake at the same rate as the other items. A 4+5+4 arrangement provides the dense hexagonal packing while avoiding corners, and would have been discovered empirically by bakers with the goal of baking the maximum number per batch with optimal uniformity. Continued use also stems from tradition, and some customers see it as a sign of appreciation from the baker for continued patronage.

I hope this is help you to what is Baker's Dosen is.:)-D

*Bob* · November 19, 2007

Excellent first post. Truly odd. Nice one.

david_carnell · November 19, 2007

WTF?

Ant · November 19, 2007

"While modern bakers no longer fear medieval law"

Bit of a rash, sweeping statement there. I'd wager that somewhere in the world there remains at least one modern baker to be found quaking behind the flour sacks at the thought of judgement, medieval style.

citizenED · November 19, 2007