Are 'neeps' swedes or turnips?

Lords. There's a bit of me (a really large bit) that doesn't want to raise this subject, partly because I suspect it will unleash a battle of proportions more epic than the great Jaffa Cake v Biscuit row, partly because of the mind-bendingly confusing nature of the whole subject, and partly for fear of provoking an almighty north / south or even international brassica-based diplomatic incident.

I was asked recently if neeps were turnips, and mumbled something about swedes and turnips, and a mixture of the two, before admitting that, actually, I didn't know for sure. This is shameful on two counts; one, I edit our food site, two, I'm Scottish. Away I scuttled, with a view to settling in my mind exactly what neeps are.

Like so many things, the idea that the Scottish stomp about shouting for neeps isn't one that matches reality. I guess the word probably persists in rural areas (or, as my dad puts it, "in Aberdeen") and among the older generation, but in urban areas, no. Although I had haggis with turnips (or most likely, swede) every Thursday as a child in Dumbarton, I don't remember anyone referring to it as neeps any more than I remember being called a bairn. To further dilute my chances of correctly identifying neeps, I've now lived in the south longer than I lived in Scotland, and as it turns out, southerners and northerners, along with Scottish and Irish folk - sadistically switch the names for turnip and swede just to mess with our minds. Also, I hate turnips. Or is that swedes?

An experimental wander around the office questioning English colleagues about what constituted neeps threw them into a veritable vegetable panic. Most answers were given with a kind of scrunched up face and questioning, apologetic tone. "Turnips?", most people ventured, a few threw in "swedes", and "parsnips" raised their pointy heads on more than one occasion.

To clear it up now (some hope), neeps is a dish of diced or mashed swede - I suspect references to "bashed neeps" come from an English notion - which are referred to in Scotland - and many parts of the north - as turnips. Always keen to help, we've covered swedes and turnips in our new seasonal vegetable guide.

And wouldn't it be wonderful if it was this simple and we could just leave it at that? Yes, yes, it would. But, no, we can't. It gets more complicated. A hell of a lot more complicated.

Further "intelligence" gathered from Scottish colleagues revealed that what the English call turnips, in Scotland are called "new turnips". Other people counter that it is in fact "swedes", the incomers (a much later cross between kale and a pure turnip), that Scottish people call "new turnips", which corrupts to "neeps", maintaining that, either way, neeps are swedes.

A Scottish news reporter, who shall remain unnamed, has it that "swedes are the wee horrible things, fit for the English and animals" (she means turnips), and others hold that the French regard swedes (meaning swedes) as fit only for cattle (and presumably the English). A phone call to her father brought forth a surprising discovery - he shunned the name swede entirely, claiming that both the large reddish things and the small whitish things are turnips. A subsequent call to my dad muddied the waters further as he agreed that neeps could be swedes or turnips, saying that when he worked on a farm, "you had a park of turnips and swedes and you'd call them 'the neeps'". Weirdly, he kept calling turnips "greentops" which seems a sensible enough a way to distinguish them until you discover there's a variety of swede called 'Willemsburger' - a canny wee bugger with a green top. I haven't raised this with my dad for fear of a family fall out.

Then there's the tumshie (a swede, apparently and certainly "nae the same as a kohlrabi" - not that anyone was claiming it was, as far as I can see), and the American rutabaga (corruption of the Swedish for red bag - meaning that it's a swede), and, yes, it's not over yet, you've got your Swedish turnip, which are basically turnips that have been cultivated in Sweden. And they're also what we call swedes. I think. Although, I really don't know because my head hurts.

What we can safely say, *if* we disregard the views of the renegade reporter above is that the large purpleish skinned things with yellowy/orange flesh (on the right in the picture above) are swedes. Most people maintain they are far superior in taste to turnips, which are the smallish, usually white fleshed things (I say usually because there are scores of varieties. Naturally) beloved of French chefs and northern Italians, and which taste rubbish. Anyone disagree?