The stars might not be aligning until the 21st (with that whole Mayan Apocalypse thing), but the numbers on our Pope-approved calendar system are all coming up dozens! This hasn't happened, as you might imagine, even once in the past 99 years, and brings to the forefront a number especially close to the hearts of cooks. While the rest of the world has gone decimal, groceries have somehow clung to their duodecimal roots--even in France, birthplace of the metric system, eggs still come by the douzaine . But why twelve, and why food? And what about the Baker's Dozen (which is even stranger)?

Well, there are theories. The prevailing explanation for why the number ten came to rule the world of counting is based on simple biology. Ten fingers, ten digits. But look a little more closely at your hand, and you'll find that we also have a dozen finger joints, easily countable with your thumb. You can actually count up to 144 this way, using two hands, and the ancient Egyptian preference for this kind of counting system led to our 24-hour day (and the method is still used in parts of Asia ). Add in the twelve lunar cycles of the year, and you've got yourself an important-seeming number.

But as great as it would be to say that we have twelve eggs in a carton because we have twelve full moons in a year (the symbolism!), it probably has more to do with easy math than anything. The number 10 can only be divided by 2 and 5, while 12 can be seen as 2 x 6 or as 4 x 3, which makes it ideal for things like shipping and selling goods. On top of that, until the 1960s, the whole British pound/shilling/pence system was based on a mind-boggling combination of twelves and twenties that lent itself to sale by the dozen.

As for the Baker's Dozen, throwing in that extra roll began as a sort of professional insurance against getting your hand chopped off in medieval England. In the 13th century, King Henry III enacted a law called the Assize of Bread and Ale that aimed to standardize prices for grain products across the kingdom. Bakers who were caught cheating their hungry customers out of their due were actually subject to "judicial amputation" of a hand--so, just to be safe, the bakers started tossing an extra bun in the oven with each batch, so they'd always have enough to avoid the long axe of the law.

Today is one of the last notably numbered days we'll see until 1/2/34 and 12/3/45 roll around, so we say take advantage of the dozen's special place in the food world, and bake up a batch of something good (like, say, Christmas cookies? ). And even if there isn't a king threatening your limbs, it never hurts to turn that dozen into a baker's.