# Turnip carving in Britain **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 29, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655 "2006-09-29T20:42:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/1 "2006-09-29T20:42:43Z")
A question for British readers. In England, Scotland, and Ireland there is a long tradition of carving lanterns from turnips, swedes (rutabagas), or mangelwurzels. In America, this tradition was transferred to the larger and more plentiful pumpkin. This tradition was more generally associated with autumn harvest before it became more specifically associated with Halloween in the mid-19th century. Since then, the North American pumpkin has made its way successfully to Britain. The BBC says that the British bought one million pumpkins for Halloween in 2004. My question is: have all those pumpkins made turnip carving all but dead in Britain? Is it still practiced much? ---
**Author:** ![ticker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@ticker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ticker)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/2 "2006-09-29T20:54:03Z")
Can’t say that in 43 years I have ever seen a carved turnip. Perhaps in more rural areas. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/3 "2006-09-29T21:43:33Z")
Pumpkins were not readily available so in our neighbourhood we used swedes. More specifically the neighbours had swedes, my bro and I had night-lights in a jam-jar. Hallowe’en has got more and more American however so I doubt many parents can be bothered with the smaller, fiddly vegetables and go for pumpkins now. This view has just been reinforced by a passing **Ponster** - he always carved turnips as a lad in Ireland (“a bitch to carve”). Now it’s pumpkins only. In fact pumpkins are only available around Hallowe’en and he doubts anyone would buy one to eat ! ---
**Author:** ![skyscapes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@skyscapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skyscapes)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/4 "2006-09-29T23:21:45Z")
When Iwas a child Halloween was much more commonly celebrated in Scotland than in England. It is only comparatively recently that Halloween has become a commercial celebration in the UK. In the 1960s and 70s I remember ‘guisers’ habitually carrying turnip lanterns. Pumpkins are now readily available and so much easier to carve - they don’t smell so badly either. Incidently, it was traditonal for ‘guisers’ (ie people in disguise) to offer a song, joke or story in return for handouts of sweets, peanuts in shell (known as monkey nuts) or apples. Unfortunately, this is being replaced by the straightforwarfd demand ‘Trick or Treat’. Do Americans dook or duck for apples or try to eat (without hands) a treacle covered scone dangling from a string? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/5 "2006-09-29T23:27:43Z")
The thing-on-a-string (the edible object varied) was more common in America in the first half of the 20th century than today. Bobbing for apples was also common then at Halloween parties — sometimes birthday parties, too. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Scrivener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@The\_Scrivener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Scrivener)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2006, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/6 "2006-09-29T23:47:55Z")
Now, _this_ is a traditional Halloween – er, [Hop Tu Naa](http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.gov.im/lib/images/mnh/turnip.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.gov.im/lib/news/mnh/celebratehoptuna.xml&h=158&w=102&sz=18&hl=en&start=21&tbnid=Wq0H3BjFmGje3M:&tbnh=97&tbnw=63&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcarved%2Bturnips%26start%3D20%26ndsp%3D20%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN) – with carved turnip lanterns. I definitely think that the minxes of Manx got the short end of the stick, though. (Staying home, eating a salted herring or a crude, soot-and-eggshell-contaminated “cake” and then trying to dream of one’s future husband? Oh, yeah, that sounds like fun. :rolleyes: ) ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/7 "2006-09-30T12:35:58Z")
Do pumpkins grow over there or do you have to import them? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/8 "2006-09-30T12:38:46Z")
[QUOTE=skyscapes] Do Americans dook or duck for apples [/QUOTE] Yes, although we call it “bobbing” for apples. Funny story: Back in my teens, I was at a church Halloween party, and the youth minister’s wife was running the apple-bobbing station. I could see that whenever a boy would bob for an apple, she would push their heads completely under the water and soak them to the shoulders, much to the amusement of the girls. I decided to get back at her: when she dunked me under, a quickly sucked in a mouthful of water. When I came back up, I sprayed all over her! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/9 "2006-09-30T12:40:08Z")
[QUOTE=HeyHomie] Do pumpkins grow over there or do you have to import them? [/QUOTE] Yes, they do grow, although I suspect that they’re also imported in significant numbers from places to which they’re more suited. ---
**Author:** ![Rayne\_Man](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@Rayne\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rayne_Man)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/10 "2006-09-30T13:46:13Z")
[QUOTE=GorillaMan] Yes, they do grow, although I suspect that they’re also imported in significant numbers from places to which they’re more suited. [/QUOTE] If you take a drive in the Fens around the Spalding area, you’ll see fields of pumpkins. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Cat\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Jones)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turnip-carving-in-britain/374655/11 "2006-10-01T09:46:30Z")
[QUOTE=skyscapes] When Iwas a child Halloween was much more commonly celebrated in Scotland than in England. It is only comparatively recently that Halloween has become a commercial celebration in the UK. In the 1960s and 70s I remember ‘guisers’ habitually carrying turnip lanterns. Pumpkins are now readily available and so much easier to carve - they don’t smell so badly either. Incidently, it was traditonal for ‘guisers’ (ie people in disguise) to offer a song, joke or story in return for handouts of sweets, peanuts in shell (known as monkey nuts) or apples. Unfortunately, this is being replaced by the straightforwarfd demand ‘Trick or Treat’. [/QUOTE] We went Trick–or-Treating in North Nottinghamshire all through the seventies. We certainly gave people the option… altho’ those who chose ‘trick’ invariably gave us a ‘treat’ too after we had told a joke, sung a song, told them a riddle etc. My Welsh grandmother, brought up in “the Valleys”, was horrified that _her_ grandchildren went out beggin !!