Turnips for the book

This may sound odd, even relative to some of the other stuff here, but I have found myself on many occasions to be embroiled in a discussion with people who don’t know the difference between a swede and a turnip. The reasons include apathy, ignorance, and differences in the way the terms are used both regionally in the UK and also internationally. Anyway, if you’re one of these people in future, this is one of the pictures I’ll be directing you towards. It’s a picture of some turnips.

Observe, (a) there is some purple to the skin, but also some white – more commonly they can be white only, or white with green, and (b) the flesh is as white as a goth on a ghost train, (c) the size, which you can’t really observe from the picture, but take it from me that they’re a bit smaller than tennis balls.

These turnips are actually quite swede-like in appearance, I have to admit, but turnips they are.

These particular turnips went into what I call a ‘vegetable pot’, which involves throwing loads of different root vegetables into a giant casserole dish with a little bit of stock and cooking slowly in the oven.