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.