Did anyone else carve a turnip instead of a pumpkin as a kid?

[FlyingMonkeys]

I can remember my mum always used to carve a turnip for Halloween. Was this a thing for other people too?

Yes me too.
Only when I cooked a turnip as an adult did I realise how hard this must have been.

47 now, always had a turnip as a dc. Sometimes did a little potato for a laugh too!!Me and ddog ate the turnip innards wholeheartedly!
Use pumpkins with dc now - so easy to scoop out in comparison!!
Dc today don't know they are born!! Ha ha!!

yes and my dad used to have to use an electric drill to carve it pumpkins are a lot easier but don't look anywhere near as creepy when lit up!

Yes. I thought it was just my mum being odd. I begged for a pumpkin every year but he answer was always no.

When I was a nanny, going back to probably about 2001, the mother of the family bought a turnip for me to carve out with the dc. It was a nightmare, really hard to do anything with, but I did it. The mother was all pleased her children had done something she had done as a child. The next year, I got in there first and bought a pumpkin early so I didn’t have to go through the trauma of turnip carving. Pumpkins are so much easier!

Yes. There were 5 of us, my mum must have had biceps like boulders.

Can still remember the smell of warming swede and candle wax, loved it.

We used to carve a swede. Do you all mean swedes when you say turnip? Turnips are so small I can't imagine how that would work. But maybe there is a bigger kind of turnip I don't know about.

Yup, we carved turnips and my hand still hurts just thinking about it

Yes. I would scrape the bits of turnip off the lid as the candle cooked it and eat them.

Swede, not turnip - yes.

@bevbrook Im Scottish..... Have always called swedes turnips. Presume it's a regional thing.

Yes, in the 70s and 80s. I don't think shops here sold pumpkins, at least on any scale, until, well I became aware of them in the 2000s.

And yes, we said turnip (tiny white and purple vegetable) but actually meant and carved a swede (larger orange, purple-tinged vegetable). I think swedes were considered as 'substitiute' or 'modern' turnips somehow.

Swedes were called turnips where I am from (North Yorkshire). We always carved Turnip Lanterns at school for Halloween. They took bloody ages with little vegetable knives. We used start them the week before Halloween and carve a bit each day at playtime and after lunch.

@Fieau What do you call turnips? Just out of interest!

We never did a turnip, even pumpkin carving didn’t start for either DH or me until we had DC. However the year before last the supermarket ran out of pumpkins so we carved a pineapple instead. It worked really well.

Neep lanterns, yup. The smell of the slightly burnt lid is very evocative.

Bev are you in Scotland? A swede is called a neep or turnip in Scotland. During my childhood I never saw the wee vegetable that’s called a turnip in England. You get them now in the national supermarket chains, but in the North-East of Scotland as a kid in the seventies and eighties, not so much a thing.

Yes, my dad always said they carved turnips.

I always thought he was lying, tbh. I can't imagine the effort that would go into doing it 

Every year at Guides we carved sugar beets as were in an area where they are a main crop for lots of farmers.

Swede here too (never heard it called a turnip), that smell when the candle was lit!

My dp claims he did. But I suspect that it’s all part of his “lived in’t shoe box in middle o’t’road” Yorkshire persona.

I remember diligently carving out my swede as a child. That was determination and I don't know how I did it. I love swede but I won't buy one unless its peeled and chopped. I don't have the patience and I'm scared of losing a digit.

I feel sorry for your dp Bert. Having his northern roots doubted and belittled like that. We can’t all own half of Bloomsbury and look down on everyone else from on high.

A pumpkin was something you saw in a book, not in the shops, so yes, we carved turnips (and I do mean swedes). We used to do it in Brownies as well as at home and always ended up with blisters on our hands.

Yes. I remember the first time I got in a pumpkin to carve for dd - I set aside a couple of hours to carve it! I couldn’t believe how easy it was, I was done in ten minutes.

My dad carved turnips (swedes) for us