Irish Carve Turnips Instead of Pumpkins
Carved turnip with vision troubles. Photograph from soozums on Flickr
My Irish kin have some interesting Halloween customs, including turnip-o-lanterns. The jack-o-lantern creation story actually starts with a turnip in Ireland during the 18th century. A blacksmith named Jack dropped a coal ember into a gouged-out turnip, and so it began. When Irish immigrants arrived in America, they substituted turnips with pumpkins—much plumper, and thus, better carving potential.
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1 Comment:
Just for clarification, my guess is that the turnips in question are yellow turnips, or what Americans tend to call rutabagas or swedes (my English Canadian mom calls them turnips too). True, you could carve a turnip, if your technique were refined enough, but it's a bit small and soft, whereas rutabagas are big and can even be kind of woody. Not only that, but it's so much more fun to say "rutabag-o-lantern."
Barry Foy at 9:54AM on 10/24/08