The Scots tradition of carving ghoulish tumshie lanterns for Hallowe’en is a fading art but is it time we patched the pumpkins and gave the humble neep the stage it so deserves?
As the last batch of tickets for Scotland’s first ever neep picking patch, Lidl is on a mission to do just that. Free for kids and just a fiver for adults, the one-of-a-kind day out aims to take family fun back to its roots.
Ahead of its the three-day event this weekend, Food Historian, Peter Gilchrist shares 10 things you might not know about the history of neeps in Scotland:
- Neep, turnip or swede? Neep is actually old English for softer and smaller turnips but began being interchangeably used to describe swedes when they arrived in Scotland in the 18th century.
- A hardy root vegetable that kept people alive. Swede was first grown in Scotland as animal feed but when the potato famine plunged many families into destitution, they became a household staple.
- A little goes a long way – for crofts across the Lowlands and Highlands, it was popular to have a ‘house cow’, which were commonly fed food waste from the kitchen including neep peelings & cores.
- Neeps helped revolutionise Scotland’s beef production. It’s widely claimed that neeps allowed farmers to feed cattle long into winter, which allowed (previously seasonal) beef to become available year-round.
- Trashing tumshie patches was punishable by imprisonment! A 1903 court case saw teenage boys charged with destroying a neep patch in Glenrothes – notable because the prosecutor didn’t recognise the term ‘tumshies’ in the trial. They faced a two shilling and six pence fine and two days in prison.
- Sweet treat anyone? The first published recipe in Scottish literature is for an earthy candied turnip but, historically, Scots would largely have boiled it whole for 1.5-2 hours.
- Neep “tumshies” and kale runts – in the 19th century, Hallowe’en transitioned into a festival for bairns with popular activities including carving neeps into ‘tumshies’ as well as creating kale runt torches.
- Carving tough old tumshies might not always have been so tricky though. Swedes would traditionally have been harvested between June and September and stored for later in the year – by Hallowe’en, they would have been softer and potentially easier to carve than your modern-day tumshie lantern.
- If TikTok had been around in the 1800s, we’d have Scotland’s favourite son to thank for getting ‘neeps’ trending. Haggis, neeps and tatties became popular in Burns Suppers, further cementing Rab as a pioneer of popular culture.
- Nowadays, it’s diet conscious Scots helping neeps go viral with a popular ‘screaming swede’ microwave hack.
Kicking off this Saturday at Chatelherault Country Park, the three-day event is free for kids under 11 and just a fiver for adults with final remaining tickets available at: https://bit.ly/4cXhtBD
Longstanding Lidl supplier, Stewarts of Tayside, grows a momentous 50 million neeps every year and is harvesting a special crop for Lidl’s pop-up patch.
All proceeds will be donated to STV Children’s Appeal.
