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?

A pp mentioned the right technique upthread.

You cut a grid with a blunt dinner knife, scoop out the grid with a dessert spoon, eat that layer.
Cut down next grid, scoop, feed that layer to dog until dog gets fed up, throw excess on to fire.
Keep going until you reach bottom but be careful not to go too deep into the base, otherwise the candle wax runs out of 'Jack's' mouth and burns your legs.

This is very important information if you're 6.

EastMids2

because what you call swedes, is what we call turnips. how can you not understand that?

It's not 'not' understanding the difference, they had the same name.
Never heard of swedes apart from, as pp said, ABBA and Bjorn Borg.
Supermarkets hadn't homogenised everything so they were turnips in the shops too.

No-one's confused.

I think that swedes are the arrivistes of the brassica-root world (they're a cross between a turnip and a cabbage of course) and, commonly used for animal feed. So people in many parts of the UK, reasonably enough, use a name for them that relates to the pre-existing human foodstuff from which they were bred, perhaps also seeking to avoid any implication that they're eating animal food.

All neeps to me.

Snarters.

My Dh used to carve out fodder beet as a youngster

I don’t think I saw a real pumpkin till I was in my 20s. We got a turnip once for halloween but I think it was an unsuccessful carving session.

Off the point but I remember making the dinner ladies laugh when I started school 'Yes please, I'll have some potatoes but no poturnips thank you.'

I thought turnip was, like tatie, a contraction of the noun.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnip_(terminology)

turnips/swedes is a regional thing.

But as ever the south provail.

I'm laughing at that Wiki link 'people in the North East quite wrongly refer to...' no we don't! big or little they're turnips.
Little ones are milk or snowball turnips not swedes.
But an insult thrown around between villages/towns could be 'they're turnip eaters'.

Oh yes , the turnip.
My DDad used to saw the top off then scooped the middle out with a 'gouge' (like a chisel but had a spoon shaped end not flat) .
Then the eyes (round) and a hole in the lid for air.

YY to the smell of the candle in the turnip.

The tricks got out of hand here :/ Can’t say much more though without it being identifying! But the name we had for Halloween went hand in hand with the mischief.

This thread has made me all nostalgic. I didn’t set eyes on a pumpkin till I was an adult. I can remember being confused about why Halloween pictures in books always featured pumpkins whilst real life Halloween involved a badly hollowed out turnip on a string.

I’d optimistically draw face designs that I’d seen on pictures of pumpkins in books for my mum to copy. “You’ll be lucky” was the grim response, as every year she sweated to gouge out three rough holes for eyes and mouth, only for her critical children to express disappointment. Poor Mum.

I might do a turnip this year actually.

Then again...

3out do you mean Mischief Night? That was bigger than Halloween where I grew up.

No, similar name though :)

Googling it @VenusClapTrap it sounds just the same, but we celebrated it on Halloween night. We’re (very) north Scotland. It got way out of hand though. It was fun the next day though to drive around and see what pranks had been done, and find the most extreme :) Stringing rope across the main road wasn’t the brightest idea though (not me!)

I was in the Dark Satanic Mills part of Yorkshire, and I think Mischief Night was the night before Halloween, if memory serves. It mostly involved stupid stuff like knocking on doors and running away, tying dustbin lids to door handles and chucking eggs and flour at windows. But then every year someone always took it too far up on the Estate and set fire to a car or something.

Venus I'm from that part of Yorkshire too and Mischief Night was always 4th November. Major part of the 'mischief' was to set fire to other kids bonfires! You had to guard yours late into the night (or till yer mam made you come in to bed)

Mischief night is the night before Halloween in Liverpool. It's also my mum's birthday and a running joke that she couldn't have been born on a more appropriate date

I remember my dad battling with bagies when i went guising😀

Love the smell of hot turnip and candle wax.
We also had string to carry them with. Double string that went through the lid too so it couldn't fall off.

Pumpkins are far easier but more expensive and you can do more complex designs but i do miss bagie lamterns😀

Mischief Night is November 4th and refers to the Gunpowder Plot .

Sandgown
Not in all parts of the uk. It varies from area to area in what date it is. And it doesnt specifically refer to the gunpowder plot. Some areas had it in spring some in autumn.

Its believed to be from when Britain had 'lawless days' when bad behaviour was allowed and mainly harmless pranks were played.

Probsbly part of the origins of trick or treating taken to USA too.

Yes. Bastard turnips. The lot of them.
Used a hammer and chisel. They were so hard. taste great with haggis tho