Root vegetables

How do you know, or why do you think people can't tell the difference?

Swede is a kind of turnip after all.

Depends where you live ,in Scotland the large yellow fleshed things we used to make lanterns are Turnips ,my daughters English MIL calls them swede .Is that a problem?

Some Yorkshire people (I'm one of them (call swedes turnips. But they know the difference.
Swedes are also referred to as yellow turnips.

Up here in Scotland, we call swedes turnips or neeps. The small white and purple turnips are turnips. So there you go...

The difference is that they have different names in different regions of the UK. For me the flesh of a swede is yellow, and turnip is white. 'Neep' comes from the word turnip but is actually a swede!

'Neep' comes from the word turnip but is actually a swede!

Just so. Swede is also a trunip, a Swedish turnip if you want to be picky. But definitely a turnip.

Other types of turnips are "turnips otherwise" 😜

Who eats the greens of neeps as well?

Swedes - neeps - taste nicer than those otherwise ones as well.

Especially with lashings of butter and haggis and champit tatties.

I get them muddled up. But I know I like the orange fleshed ones mashed up with butter and pepper.

Baggs

Especially with lashings of butter and haggis and champit tatties.

Oh yes, absolutely! Yum!

In Scotland you hear “ neeps and tatties” neeps are the yellow fleshed swedes, tatties are potatoes. White fleshed potatoes and white fleshed turnips would not good on a plate but no doubt it could be done, to further confuse the issue you can get yellow fleshed potatoes.
I’ve never noticed turnips in shops, farmers do use a fast growing variety for sheep.

Same in Ireland paddyanne. I get “so irritated” when people assume their way is the right way!

I once put a turnip on the conveyer at M&S, the checkout assistant had to ask a colleague what it was!

Okay. So reading these comments I take it that it’s my Scottish heritage. That I must allow for the fact other regions say different things.
Yes delicious with lots of butter and sprinkle of pepper.
I’m sure I’ll still be irked though.

I have never tasted turnips and but I know what one looks like , not sure if it's me but I don't think they are that popular in Wales as I very rarely notice them in supermarkets, Swede on the other hand there seems to be plenty of. Always nicer after there has been some frost about. Although I have noticed it you put it in the fridge for a few days that seems to work too.

paddyann54

Depends where you live ,in Scotland the large yellow fleshed things we used to make lanterns are Turnips ,my daughters English MIL calls them swede .Is that a problem?

😯
They call them turnips in the South-west of England too.
They're swede, swede, swede!!

DamaskRose

Same in Ireland paddyanne. I get “so irritated” when people assume their way is the right way!

That's because we are!
😁

IMO it’s a regional thing.
But if the big thing I call a swede is called a turnip in Scotland (or wherever), what do they call the smaller thing I call a turnip?
Or is that the ‘neep’ in ‘neeps and tatties?’

Witzend

IMO it’s a regional thing.
But if the big thing I call a swede is called a turnip in Scotland (or wherever), what do they call the smaller thing I call a turnip?
Or is that the ‘neep’ in ‘neeps and tatties?’

The larger ones - swedes to you - are neeps, as in haggis, neeps and tatties, to us in Scotland. I would just call the little ones turnips.

Witzend

IMO it’s a regional thing.
But if the big thing I call a swede is called a turnip in Scotland (or wherever), what do they call the smaller thing I call a turnip?
Or is that the ‘neep’ in ‘neeps and tatties?’

A white turnip.

Neeps are orange.

Off the point I know, but I quite like turnips - the smaller white jobs. They go very nicely in a lamb stew or casserole, and in any of my thick, multi-veg soups.

I am partial to a swede in a casserole or hotpot, but dislike them boiled as side vegetables. My mum used to boil them in chunks for days and I hated them.

Turnips are horrible
Swedes are lovely.

(In my expert opinion)