thought I was the only one who took a SWEDE trick or treating!

[alwayshappy101]

When I was younger,my mum used to dress me in a bin bag for halloween.she couldn't afford a pumpkin either,so she used to painstakingly carve out the middle of a SWEDE and put a tea light in and a bit of string through to take with me.
one year she forked out for fake scars which she stuck to my face using lemon curd!

I thought I was the only one-until today.I was talking to a sales assistant in a shoe shop who's mum dressed her in a bin bag and carved a swede for her too!

Are there any other bin bag wearing swede takers out there too?

[PandoNoPants]

Wow, I had forgotten about that! We also had halloween potatoes!

[Jeffjefftyjeff]

Anything carveable from the allotment, normally a swede.

There is a whole Wikipedia page on swede / turnip terminology:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnip_(terminology)

[alwayshappy101]

Its great that so many fruits and vegetables have been made into lanterns.

I may try to carve some "unusual" lanterns this year.

Roll over pumpkins

[Alwayschanging1]

Swede for us too. Took hours to carve out.
When I bought my first pumpkin for my own DC I fell of my chair with surprise when I saw it was already hollow inside - I thought it was going to take weeks to hollow out something so big. And then I realised the insiders were soft... heaven!

[ballottheplebs]

LTB. You deserve better.

[Helspopje]

Neep
And I went guising not trick or treating

[Veterinari]

Turnip here too - but we had to dig out our own - with a teaspoon!
Pretty sure our parents used it as an excuse to keep us quiet for the 2 or 3 days before Halloween

I remember it being blooming difficult!

[MammaBean1988]

In the U.K., particularly in Scotland, it's traditionally called guising. You put on a costume or disguise and go round the doors doing a turn (joke, song, dance, whatever really) for which you're rewarded with sweeties or apples or monkey nuts or occasionally small bits of money.

Trick or treating is an American thing where, I'm led to believe, you demand that residents give you something lest you "trick" them - often in the form of house egging or flouring or some other antisocial nonsense.

Swede (assume you mean the same as a neep) lanterns were standard Halloween lanterns before pumpkins became so easily available here. Pumpkins are much easier to scoop out and carve.

[hugoagogo]

Hi fives Kelvin we too had sugar beets, because they were free from the field behind my house. So effing hard though!

and no trick or treating or guising in Norfolk, just bobbing for rossets and singing witches of Halloween

[peaceloveandbiscuits]

I used to work for Tesco doing the picking for internet shopping. We had machines that suggested (ridiculous) substitutions for missing items, and at Halloween it suggested I substitute a pumpkin with a butternut squash. I felt so sad for the poor wee kid carving a squash.

[Cassimin]

Turnip here. Poor mum, must have taken her hours.
Duck apple in the bowl out of the kitchen sink.

[FurryLittleTwerp]

I made a Melon Lantern when DS was about 4. I'd forgotten to buy a pumpkin & the local supermarket had sold out.

The melon lantern was excellent - nice & small for a small child, too

[FurryLittleTwerp]

DS's (former - he's a grown-up now) school has a lantern competition at the annual Bonfire Party - one year the winner was a crocodile's head, made from a huge marrow. So good.

[InvasionOfTheBodyShatners]

If a swede is called a turnip, what's a turnip called?

We had rubbish swede lanterns. Stank like bloody hell when they started getting hot from the candle.

[redheadbarmaid]

Scottish so neep and guising here too!
As well as 'witch' bin bag and 'ghost' white sheet costumes my mum pushed the boat out one year and made me a cat. Dressed all in black with a lovely tail made from a leg of an old pair of tights stuffed with newspaper!

[heavenlypink]

I'm trying to find a picture of the cardboard witches hat circa 1970/80s that I would have worn .... Anyone else remember them?

[M0stlyHet]

I grew up in Scotland and my mum used to carve a turnip (it was years and years before I realised the English call them swedes) for us to go "guising" (short for "disguising", btw, nothing to do with Guy Fawkes!) They're an absolute bastard to carve, pumpkins are much easier.

[FurryLittleTwerp]

A swede is a purple turnip & a turnip is a yellow one, or it might be the other way round.

A mangold-wurzel is some sort of large turnip as well.

[peaceloveandbiscuits]

Turnips are little white and purple affairs, and swedes are rock hard, delicious yellow things you mash. Surely?

[M0stlyHet]

Yeah, I now know what the English usage of the words is - but in Scotland it's different. Not wrong, just different. (Actually, the white ones the English call turnips are an abomination anyway - totally tasteless. They have no culinary point whatsoever. I will admit neeps are a bit marmite - they have a very strong, love-it-or-hate-it taste, but at least they taste of something.)

[Lndnmummy]

Ha, I am a Swede

[SleepingTiger]

I once trick or treated with a Norwegian who carried a sheep's head, but never a Swede.

[hollyisalovelyname]

SleepingTiger

[mudandmayhem01]

My uncle from Texas sent us proper Halloween costumes in the 80s. A skeleton for me and a witch for my sister. They looked amazing compared to the normal bin bag rubbish. We went to a fancy dress competion at brownies thinking we were dead certs to win and... we got nothing as mean old brown owl thought we were show offs, I was furious it the injustice of it all, brown owl was probably right!!