[HN Gopher] When People Carved Turnips Instead of Pumpkins for H...
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When People Carved Turnips Instead of Pumpkins for Halloween
Author : samizdis
Score : 53 points
Date : 2021-10-23 09:18 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| brianolson wrote:
| Kids just don't learn to carve 'neeps the way they used to. ...
| Life is Neeps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypsNiixwLXQ
| thorin wrote:
| Wow there are a lot of people from the North of England here. I'm
| from Sunderland and it was turnips in the 80s. For the full tick
| you had to go and nick them out of the farmers field, no
| organised pumpkin picking for us! Someone told me they managed to
| spend 70 pounds on a pumpkin picking trip last week with 2
| children, I think the farmer was a master of upselling!
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Where I come from (South West England) turnips are too small to
| make carving easy, do they really mean swedes? That is Swedish
| turnips, known as rutabaga in the US,
| m-i-l wrote:
| Yes, the article refers to what are called turnips (or neeps)
| in Scotland, i.e. the big yellowish ones that you make neeps
| and tatties with. I think they're known as swedes in England
| (although swede in Scotland often refers to the small white
| ones which I think are called turnips in England).
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Dunno, rutabagas are mostly called yellow turnips around here.
| They're all brassicas in the end.
| bgeeek wrote:
| As an '80s kid, swedes/turnips were the norm in my hometown in
| the UK.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I've always found it very interesting how this ancient tradition
| evolved while still keeping true to it's origins. North America
| was largely settled by people from the isles, particularly Irish
| and Scotsmen, and the tradition adapted a native plant and it
| became a classic American tradition all it's own. Then to see
| that slight change in the ancient tradition spread from North
| America again, it makes you wonder how future anthropologists
| will interpret this change, whether they will understand all the
| cultural and social and economic dynamics that went into it.
| james_a_craig wrote:
| This is still pretty common in Scotland - I've done it mostly
| every year since I was a child. They give you a much creepier
| lantern than pumpkins do, but they can smell awful as the candle
| cooks them a bit, and they collapse spectacularly over the next
| few days.
| GordonS wrote:
| Fellow Scot here - it was always turnips where I grew up, but
| even in rural areas it's mostly pumpkins nowadays. There are
| still a few holdouts though, mostly those adverse to the
| "Americanisation" of traditions.
| m-i-l wrote:
| Yes, it was turnips (known as swedes in England and rutabaga
| in the US) when I was young too.
|
| We also did guising, i.e. the dressing up and going around
| houses, which turned into trick or treating when it was
| exported to the US. The US-style trick or treating was
| starting to be re-imported when I was young, but (certainly
| where I was) it wasn't looked upon very favourably because it
| was usually practised by the rougher sorts who used it as an
| excuse to throw eggs at peoples homes (the traditional
| guising hadn't had the "trick" element).
| GordonS wrote:
| Just for info, we call them "neeps" here in Scotland, but
| they are actually swedes as you say.
| zabzonk wrote:
| We did this when I was a kid in Lincolnshire, which has a lot of
| turnips.
| shever73 wrote:
| I grew up in the North of England and remember going out trick or
| treating with my uncle and cousins about 40 years ago. We carved
| turnips into jack o'lanterns, and threaded string to carry them.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Last year we used a projector to add stencils to the pumpkin by
| using a small dremel to make the outline. Super easy to do and
| fun for the kids!
| Sharlin wrote:
| I mean, pumpkins are a New World plant, so would be strange if
| they had been historically used on the British Isles.
| gilrain wrote:
| True, but it's interesting... some of those new world plants
| spread so quickly that, for instance, many New World foods were
| first introduced to the US from the Old World, and knowledge
| that they were actually New World would have been quite
| limited.
|
| For instance, chile peppers spread from South America so
| quickly that subsequent explorers of Africa, China, etc.
| misidentified them as being native to those and other places.
|
| In the US, even among native communities, chile peppers arrived
| largely with slaves from Africa, and were thought of as exotic.
| stan_rogers wrote:
| Tomatoes in North America had pretty much the same journey -
| from South/Central America to Europe, then back to the
| Americas, where they didn't really catch on for quite a
| while.
| celticninja wrote:
| I carved turnips when I was younger, maybe only 30 (previously
| said 40) years ago. Pumpkins were expensive back then and the
| tradition, for my parents when they were younger, back in Ireland
| was to carve a turnip. You would do it much the same except you
| would add a handle and be able to carry it around with you at
| night. It was a lot more work to carve but it was great for trick
| or treating, especially when cheap torches were not so easily
| available.
| andrewgleave wrote:
| Same in the Isle of Man.
|
| Pumpkins only became more popular in the 90s. Turnip/Swede
| (moots) all the way.
|
| One event this year has swede ice cream!
| kingcharles wrote:
| Whoah. Isle of Man representing on HN. I've reached the end
| of the Internet.
|
| Also: turnip boy here. Don't think I even saw a pumpkin until
| I was in my late teens.
| andrewgleave wrote:
| Since 2009 :)
| atdrummond wrote:
| We should have a Manx HN meet up sometime!
| noir_lord wrote:
| North of England up as a small child in the 80's as well.
|
| Pumpkins weren't really a thing here until much later.
| raesene9 wrote:
| Same for me, in Scotland. When I was young (~ 40 years ago) it
| was Turnips lanterns we had.
| fiftyacorn wrote:
| Yeah pumpkins only became popular when kids started trick or
| treating up here. Before it was turnips and guising
| entropyie wrote:
| Same here, turnip was the tradition in Ireland in the 80s/90s,
| pumpkins were an American import.
|
| Like others have said, it was _hard_ work :)
| jaymzcampbell wrote:
| Another (Northern) Irishman here - I too remember vividly
| carving out rather small turnips as a kid in the late 80s and
| 90s. The small size and difficulty in carving it for me always
| ended up making for a rather creepy but oddly friendly looking
| grin.
| dpwm wrote:
| I first heard about this from the pizza effect Wikipedia page:
|
| > The creation of jack-o'-lanterns from turnips (rutabaga) was a
| Halloween custom in Ireland and parts of Great Britain. Irish
| immigrants brought this tradition with them to the United States,
| and adapted it to use native pumpkins instead of turnips. In
| time, pumpkins came to be used instead of turnips to create
| jack-o'-lanterns in Ireland and Great Britain. [0]
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizza_effect#Ireland
|
| EDIT: There's also more information in the article Wikipedia
| cites [1]
|
| [1]: https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-
| drink/hal...
| im3w1l wrote:
| Fascinating. This kind of reminds me of people's romanticized
| views of the past. And it supports my theory that "returning"
| to a past that never was is possible and maybe even desirable.
| periheli0n wrote:
| Same in Southern Germany 40 years ago. We would carve faces into
| turnips. After dark we would put a small candle inside & place
| them in front of a neighbour's door. We rang the bell and hid. If
| the ,,turnip-ghosts" were to the neighbours' delight, they would
| put a few coins or treats next to them. We did this for the whole
| neighbourhood.
|
| Once a guy who moved in only recently from a different area in
| Germany wasn't aware of the tradition. He took them inside! We
| were probably equally offended by this reaction as he was by what
| he must have thought was a very strange way to say ,,welcome"
| from his new neighbours in this godforsaken place he got stranded
| for a job :D
| microtherion wrote:
| In Switzerland, turnip lanterns are still seen as the genuine
| tradition, and pumpkin carving, while decidedly more fun, as an
| imported custom.
|
| The Swiss style turnip lantern generally does not use faces, but
| is mostly ornamental (Using cookie cutter shapes for those not
| skilled at free hand carving). Instead of cutting holes, only the
| outer skin is supposed to be removed, which takes even greater
| skill of hollowing out the turnip.
|
| The children then assemble in parades with their turnip lanterns.
| Turnips are definitely more convenient for parading, and pumpkins
| for stationary displays, so I see both traditions coexisting
| here.
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(page generated 2021-10-23 23:01 UTC)