Truly horrific turnip lanterns
Forget plump pumpkins, if you really want to scare the living daylights out of all and sundry a carved turnip is the way to go.
Pumpkins are chubby and pretty ( ‘pumpkin’ is, after all, a term of endearment). Turnips are ugly, misshapen, strangely coloured veg that look like the skull of some kind of alien form.
It makes sense, therefore, that turnips were the original Halloween jack-o’-lantern before US pumpkins came along with their soft insides and pleasing proportions.
The practice of carving turnips originated from an Irish folk tale about a man named Jack who, after trying to trick the devil, was cursed to roam the Earth with only a burning coal held inside a hollowed-out turnip.
Anyone who has ever carved a Halloween lantern from this unlovely vegetable will truly know the meaning of hellish pain and perseverance. Many a kitchen utensil has been ruined trying to hollow out a turnip, a vegetable whose innards are as hard as a frozen winter road. Carving a face into the tough flesh is a devil of a job, which may explain why the crude, rough-hewn result is so bone-chillingly terrifying. With a lit candle inside the singed turnipy smell is ungodly.
So, should we go back to our roots with turnip lanterns? Now, that would be a nightmare.