SWEET CORN SEASON

Yesterday's evening meal was an annual celebration at our house......the first meal of freshly picked sweet corn on the cob.  When truckloads of sweet corn, still in the husks, are parked in convenience store parking lots, the word spreads like a wild fire through the community.  "They're selling sweet corn!"  

We forget what a perk this is for us city folks.  Buying sweet corn from these vendors is a big part of summertime in the Midwest.  It's one place where random acts of kindness are doled out one ear at a time.  If one orders a dozen ears, one will get what's known as a baker's dozen, or 13 ears.  

Medieval Bakery

The term dozen goes back to the Latin word duodecim, which means 12.  The phrase baker's dozen originated in medieval England where bakers gave their customers 13 instead of the standard 12 loaves of bread to avoid being penalized for not meeting the weight requirements. That extra loaf was called the vantage loaf.

When there was a good harvest, a baker might have made more bread than could be sold from his bakery.  The extra bread was sold to middlemen  called 'hucksters,' who would resell the bread on the streets.  This was a win-win arrangement.  The baker would get rid of his bread to the huckster, and the huckster made a profit by selling the vantage loaf, the 13th loaf he had gotten free from the baker.

Pillory

13th-century English law imposed severe punishment for selling in short measure.  This could be a fine, destruction of the baker's oven, or even the pillory (a wooden or metal framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands).  The purpose of the pillory was public humiliation.  

Sweet and tender!