The Dark History Behind The ‘Baker’s Dozen’
In Babylon, shortchanging bread led to someone’s hand being chopped off.
When you go into a donut shop, the most common amount ordered is usually a dozen donuts. Dozen is a word of French origin that refers to 12 donuts.
However, there’s another term to refer to 13 donuts, or sometimes a little more for good measure: the baker’s dozen. Sometimes, customers might ask a baker to throw in an extra donut, bagel, or bun.
I grew up in New York, so bagels were the gold standard breakfast food for a good day. A group of friends would usually get a dozen bagels, but we never knew we could request one more.
The term is also called the devil’s dozen, and there’s good reason for that — the baker’s dozen is a term with dark and sinister origins.
In some societies, bakers had poor reputations for shorting customers the amount of bread they were supposed to give, and the punishment for a baker found guilty of shorting customers could be having ears nailed to the wall or hands cut off.
This is the story of the baker’s dozen.
Why bread was so important
According to a 1921 version of The Baker’s Helper, the baker’s dozen originated from medieval…
