swede and turnips

[tracy]

hi i have a friend who thinks that swede and turnips are the same thing now i dont agree , in some of my books they are in the same chapter yet in others they are seperate... could you please clear up this confusion for me cheers tracy

[rustylady]

They're definitely not the same!! Swede are yellow-fleshed, and usually left to grow quite large. Used by continentals as animal feed, but us Brits like them mashed with butter and pepper.
Turnips are generally white-fleshed, and M & S now sell small ones at extortionate prices - so they're quite posh

[tracy]

thanks rustylady maybe you can give me some advice ?
as you can see my location is the canary islands . i have decided to grow swede,turnips and parsnips for the ex pats for xmas as these are not readily available here now here goes
1>i think i can grow them in the same bed as they are all root crops ?am i right
2>you say swede are large? how large is large
3>turnips small and very expensive how small is small ie maybe 2 to 3 inches across ?
4>in the uk i take it organic veg is more expensive. i havnt lived there for over 12 years so i am not sure,but i am organic and would be selling veg to order
any feed back would be great xx cheers tracy

[teakdesk]

Swedes and turnips are the same thing but which name you use depends on where you live - it has nothing to do with size!

As a Northerner I call them turnips (the scots call them neeps).

Southerners call them swedes.

The farm I used to play on as a kid in Yorkshire fed them to cattle (yellow fleshed roots just like I can buy in supermarkets labelled as swedes) and I don't remember my Mum ever cooking with them or seeing them in the greengrocers I used to work in (run by the farmer who fed them to his cattle).

In those days I only ate turnips/swedes in Scotland as neeps (haggis with neeps and tatties).

I've carved many turnips to put a candle in for bonfire night but we never ate them. They were always yellow fleshed.

They were eaten by humans during the war with the Ministry of Defence recommending one or two rows in an allotment but were shunned afterwards.

Southern restaurants started promoting them in the late 50's and 60's and called them swedes.

However large roots are not now seen as cool darn sarf so marketing men who wanted something "exotic" to sell started calling small roots baby turnips.

And added a zero to the price!!

The fast growing varieties they are selling as babies in supermarkets do have white flesh but the ones I am growing have yellow flesh.

It's all a con by the money men!!



Edit: just re-read this post and realised it could be taken as a bit stronger than I meant !!! I have this argument weekly with OH whenever we go to the supermarket so it's very well practiced!!!!

[Lottieval]

My OH calls swedes turnips, but then he's a scouser, you've only got to look at the seed packets to see they are different, as has already been said swedes are orange fleshed and eaten mashed with butter and a bit of black pepper or often mashed with carrot. Turnips are white fleshed, much smaller, swedes can be 4 or 5 inches diameter and often an elongated round, shape, turnips are more of a squashed, round shape. I find swede has much more flavour than a turnip which I would only use in a stew, but that's a personal opinion. As for halloween lanterns, when I was a kid we used mangol wurzels for that.(sp???)!

[Lovage]

In Sweden they don't grow swedes only turnips, so where does the name come from?

[Snadger]

Turnips are usually a summer crop and swedes are a winter crop. They are both brassicas.

[Two_Sheds]

They are different beasts (they taste totally different too).

Brassica napus var. napobrassica is the Swede/Swedish Turnip/Rutabaga and originated as a cross between a cabbage and a turnip.
"rutabaga" is Swedish for "root ram" I think.

Brassica rapa var. rapa is a turnip

Scots call both vegetables "neeps"

* Cultivated varieties of Brassica rapa include:
Chinese cabbage: Bok choi (chinensis group) and Napa cabbage (pekinensis group)
Mizuna (nipposinica group)
Aburana (nippo-oleifera group)
Flowering cabbage (parachinensis group)
Turnip (rapa group)

[Florence Fennel]

uh-oh, I see a great debate forming. I thought "swede" was a posh name for a turnip, but the TS explanation is plausible. The flesh goes the same colour when they're cooked though and I can't say I've noticed a difference in the taste. I too remember making a Halloween lantern from a turnip as a child in Yorkshire, I don't think I'd even heard of a pumpkin, or maybe we couldn't afford one!

[Caro]

In Scotland, the yellow-fleshed one is our traditional turnip, for haggis, neeps and tatties. When I was a child, we didn't even have swede. I thought swede was a pale English imitation

Caro

[TEB]

Definately two different beasts as TS points out, Swedes are also called Yellow Turnips which adds to the confusion, and so I have read upt North both are sometimes called Snaggers

[Alison Adams]

We have turnips (orange/yellow flesh) and 'white turnips' - which are the little ones. OH (a Southern Jessie) calls turnip swede. In our house, they are the same thing.

[Fluorescent green]

Hi

I thought that they were both the same or similar untill I tasted a small one, not as nice as turnip (marian).

FG

[maytreefrannie]

Here we usually call swedes 'turnips' - the yellow-fleshed, big ones
The smaller turnips we call 'white turnips' or when I was a child they were often called 'white tudgies' (the mind boggles).

I find the smaller white turnips quite tasteless, whereas the 'real turnip' (the Swede turnip) is lovely and full of flavour. I love it mashed with butter or in a root veg bake.

[oldie]

I grew up on a farm in Scotland and we grew Swedes and Mangels a type of beet (maybe southerners would call them Mangelwurzle). Both were fed to livestock,but the Swedes were also eaten by humans. When they grew in the field behind the house we used to pop over and get one especially for Sunday dinner. We also made Halloween lanterns using the Swedes, we did not have pumpkins.