The dying art of swede carving

[MildGreenDairyLiquid]

A lot is said about traditional crafts dying out - thatching, stonemasonry, stained glass. But what about swede carving?

I’m pretty sure I didn’t see a pumpkin in this country until I was 35.

Before that it was the humble swede, now cruelly forgotten.

Tastes nicer too.

Has anyone been on yet to inform you that the proper name for these is ´neeps'?

No. I always thought that swede was the English word for turnip. We still call the big ones turnip even if the supermarkets call it a swede.

Neeps or turnip or tumshie!

Carving them was a bastard and having to eat the hollowed out insides the next day was torture.

Still nicer than pumpkin lanterns though.

I call a swede a turnip or neep.
The little ones that seem to be called turnips elsewhere don't appear here much but my dad used to call them nippy neeps.

This

They are turnips up here. Always have been, always will be. This is a hill I will die on lol.

It's turnip lanterns and haggis, neeps and tatties. Not swedes!

Same here, I’m 54 and grew up in London and it was always pumpkins. I did know of turnips/swede carving but thought it was something people did way in the past. Then I married an Irishman and moved to Wales and found out that isn’t the case. Maybe it’s more regional even in England. Obviously Ireland, Wales & Scotland seem more traditional turnip than pumpkin, but maybe some parts of England are too? Maybe us soft south east folk wimped out on turnips early? 😃

Turnips were the original 'Jack o' lanterns'.
And fucking terrifying hey we're. Look at this specimen!

www.atlasobscura.com/articles/turnip-jack-o-lanterns-are-the-root-of-all-evil

I can't believe my poor Dad would carve a swede (although we called it a turnip). We carried them with a real candle. I don't see children carrying pumpkins now?

I've now lived in the NW for 10 years and it's all pumpkins here too and I've never heard anyone mention that it used to be turnips. Maybe it's a NE England and Scotland thing?

Swedes are the proper thing, pumpkins are just a new-fangled nonsense.

Start a week early, hack out a bit a day with a sharp knife, check your first aid box is topped up and don't even think about a risk assessment.

As a Scot I think pumpkins are great!
Neeps were hell to carve.

I remember my dad attempting this one year - I thought I was imagining it. Love mashed swede but I can't even imagine how you'd hollow one out.

I was just telling my kids the other day about carving swedes/turnips and having those at Halloween. My dad used to put a string handle on for us to carry around like lanterns. We called them tuggies round here haha.

Always a turnip , sorry swede, for us growing up in the NE.
Candle wax dripped inside and the singed bagie smelled great.

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Our dressing up too was a black bin bag with a head and arm holes, a cardboard witches hat and those plastic witch fingers 😂

Also the plastic masks with the little breathing hole Halloween had a smell back then, I loved it. Smell was likely neep but I remember the bin bags smelling too.

Oh God yes, I forgot about those masks 🤣 you had the tight, thin, cutting in your skin elastic mark round your face all the next day 🤣

Bit behind the southerners up north maybe. 53, was always a swede and they were an absolute bastard to carve. Often involving minor stabbing or cutting injuries. Bloody hours, it was painful, I didn't even like eating swede then - do now though.
Best thing ever when pumpkins arrived. So much easier, it was a revelation. Would not be moved to do it again.

I still struggle to believe that pumpkins are Real Actual Things and not something made up in a cartoon. Turnip lanterns all the way for us growing up. I was teaching the song about 'I made a turnip lantern' to the kids in school the other day and I could see they just didn't understand what it was all about. Sad.

Amen!

YABVU - I have permanent callouses on my knuckles and have wept blood over too many a turnip. Thank god those dark days are gone! Turnips are for eating not for decorative utility.

I’m 60 and it was always a swede
DM used a very sharp knife and took ages
We did have tea light sized small candles and used to make a handle out of garden twine

I have yet to chop a swede for a casserole etc without impaling myself. Only a fool would try to carve one.

My dad used to do it with his drill too.

I'd totally forgotten that we brought them with us when singing for pennies.

The string dipped in wax so not to rip your fingers off.

With a candle ripped in half stuck at an angle in a smoking turnip, whilst dressed in a witches outfit made entirely of black binbags and crepe paper.

The first year pumpkins arrived here was in 1996, when tesco came. Dad and Dsis misread the signage and came home with a £15 pumpkin. Mum made them return it...and Dad thunderesly attacked more turnips with his drill and chisel.

It did. It took a week of after-school effort to scrape out enough to carve it. And then the whole house reeked of burnt swede for days after Halloween.