I have never had the white turnips. They were one of the things my mother never made, I think I out of deference to my father's delicate digestion ( which I think I have partly inherited). I also never had cucumber and she never made roast pork, but we did have bacon and ham. And she also never served spinach although he said he liked spinach - she just didn't know how to cook it, I think. And was amazed when my sister and I showed her that it was the easiest and quickest veg to cook!
When I first came to Germany I had to get to know lots of new kinds of veg. Celeriac was/is an absolute staple, asparagus was always white, there was kohlrabi, salsify, red cabbage (all unknown to me and probably not known anywhere else in the UK at the time) only French beans but no runner beans.
I really missed swedes. I asked my mother-in-law and she said that was only for cattle. Nowadays you can get a far wider variety of vegetables and they are becoming a bit more modern in their way of cooking them. Back in the day, you would rarely get vegetables, except sauerkraut, with a meal in a restaurant, you were always served a salad as the greens.
