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?

I asked my mum a couple of years ago how the heck she managed to carve the turnip every year, she said she used to use a chisel!

It was always a big candle that burned the lid, I don't think tealights were a thing then either? I don't remember seeing pumpkins till the 90s but I can see why they took over, you don't need a chisel for them!!

Turnip here too

Didn't know pumpkins existed until late teens!

Large parsnips.....with the long part trimmed off and the thick end hollowed out, then eyes and mouth cut in. Just made do with what was to hand (rural!).

We did turnips too.

I bought first pumpkin for my own DC and nearly fell off my chair in delight when I realised it was hollow - and soft inside!!!! I thought it was going to take me a week to carve out a whole pumpkin.

1970's East Anglia - but might as well have been on Walton's Mountain (except they would have had REAL pumpkins!)

Of course we ate the turnips! What else would we do with them?
We ate bits as they came out and cooked the rest.

Did nobody else put a 'chimney' hole in the lid to let the heat and smoke out their trunips?

Turnip lanterns here too and no trick or treating.we had mischief night on the 4 the November instead and also 'penny for the guy'
Pumpkins and trick or treating are American imports that arrived overnight

60s and 70s in Scotland we'd carve turnips into lanterns. My dad had a big hand drill with a huge bit. We'd saw the lid off and drill out the inside to get the carving going. Then we'd melt the bottom of a candle with another lit candle to get it to stick. There were always candles in the house because of the power cuts and we were 'all electric' on our scheme. String for a handle, pleated if you could be arsed! Ahh the smell of burning neeps and the sense of achievement!!!

Oh no they didn't tiredgirly ! Pumpkins yes, in the early 2000s perhaps? But I was trick-or-treating in England in the early 1980s.

...and it was an established tradition. Everyone knew the drill.

Yes because my mum always left it to the last minute and all the pumpkins would be sold out!

Well, you learn something new every day! I had no idea that a swede (or rutabaga) was a cross between a turnip (the small white things) and a cabbage.
We didn’t eat the carved out stuff from the neeps because we used rusty old tools to hollow them out and did it on the garage floor. We eat neeps a lot though, and always on Christmas Day. It’s just not Christmas without it. Simmered for hours with a little soft brown sugar and then mashed up.

also 3out when rutabagas were first introduced to Britain from Sweden they were referred to as swidish turnips, some communities shortened this to Swede and some communities shortened it to Turnip.

But it seems it's mainly people who call them Swedes, believe it's the only and right way to refer to them, which makes them want to act all school teacher incredulous like.

😂😂 Even when the majority of posters refer to them as neeps or turnips!
Neeps were first used as animal feed. Don’t waste them on the cows, neeps are far too delicious not to share with us humans too!

oh yes and neeps being... neep (from the Old English næp, Latin napus, reflected in the name Brassica napobrassica) is a root vegetable that originated as a cross between the cabbage and the turnip

^ lifted from Wikipedia

Hmm, not sure I’m buying the use of old English word origin in Scotland. Entirely possible (if the English introduced the neep to Scotland) but I think it’s more likely that the word turnip was just shortened to neep.
But wiki couldn’t be wrong ;)

aww I thought it came from the Latin word and adopted into Scottish language.
But the Oxford English dictionary back up Wikipedia sorry

en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/neep

But it seems it's mainly people who call them Swedes, believe it's the only and right way to refer to them

Noticed that too😁

Neep is old scottish probably shotened version of turnip as pp said and in scottish speech =neep.

There is reference to it being called a neep because of local etymology nothing to do with English words, if you want to quote Wikipedia😁

There is reference to it being called a neep because of local etymology nothing to do with English words

yaay I'm glad
I'll remember that for next year, when the topic turns up again

I’m not saying old English didn’t call it naep, just that I don’t believe it was solely an adoption of old English when used in Scotland. Both words could have been used but come from different word origins.
If it is genuinely and solely an old English term then that’s very interesting, because it would point towards the neep being introduced to Scotland by the English. But that is entirely possible.

Both words could have been used but come from different word origins

I agree.

‘They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our neeeeeeps!’ 😂😂

Except, maybe of course the neep was introduced to Scotland by the English. Some sites say it was a difficult, labour intensive crop to grow, and was favoured by ‘hobby farmers’ in England. It gradually spread north. It’s use as an animal feed is contributed to sparking the industrial revolution because it meant cattle were strong rather than a bag of bones after wintering indoors.

But, other sites say the neep wasn’t introduced to England until mid to late 1700s, but neeps are referred to in scottish literature much earlier than that.

So, who knows. Interesting stuff though!

I love mumsnet

come on a thread for nostalgia, learn so much more

Fodder beet (from the fields, grown for the cows!)

That's flipping scary!