Neep

Alright, I wasn't angling for a heated discussion when I started writing this but I fear it might start one, so here goes. What’s a neep, team? 'Cause apparently, I don't know the answer.

It’s not turnip season (something I am very prepared to be wrong about because I’m not a strong gardener and this snippet of information was based off the fastest and laziest Google) but my own Neep print has been hanging in the Roseleaf in Leith for a week or so now and it has got me thinking. Since I drew the Neep illustration (nearly 15 years ago now, which is horrifying) the number of discussions I have had about this particular root vegetable still blows my mind.

Neep is part of a series of three prints. It can be paired with a tattie and a haggis, and yes, I will do a feature on all three, hold on to your butts for the haggis. For the neep, I wanted to test out my abilities as a botanical illustrator, and, full disclosure; it’s not my favourite branch of scientific illustration. I’m not that mad keen on plants and there are many splendid botanical illustrators out there. I decided I prefer cells and bodies, myself, but I do enjoy a planty break on the odd occasion, just to mix it up. If you are not familiar with Scottish fare: haggis, neeps and tatties is our trademark dish. We’ll go into what haggis is in a later post but suffice it to say it’s traditionally mashed up leftover sheep, tatties are potatoes (also mashed in this case. Or champit if you like, which means mashed) and neep is turnip (also mashed). The problem arises when you ask what a turnip is, because that’s where the waters get muddied… and I might have made a mistake.

If you go to the shops in Scotland a turnip is a big, yellow-fleshed root vegetable. The skin is sometimes purpley at the top where the leaves are, and fades to whitish by the tip of its root. I believe that almost everywhere else this vegetable is called a swede. An actual turnip is smaller, whiter, and rubbish, and you definitely couldn’t carve it at Halloween as an alternative to pumpkin (although I have never successfully carved a neep-swede either so…) Would you like to be further confused? Cool, read this Guardian article which I feel sums up the whole situation beautifully.

So when I went to draw the neep, I was, as mentioned earlier, very young, and a bit naive, and I drew a turnip. But I drew what everyone else thinks a turnip is (brassica rapa) and that is not what I would eat as a neep (brassica napus). However, is it wrong? Because it is a turnip. Which is a neep. Just maybe not the one you’d traditionally find on your plate with haggis and mash. Also, I am still quite proud of my wee turnip, and he looks great beside the tatties and the haggis. Always endeavouring to get the facts right though, I have been reworking the classic HNT print triptych, and one day I will relaunch them, with this here “proper” neep.

If you want to be the first to know when that finally happens, you’re going to want to put your email address in that box up there, just sayin’ . And if you want to tell me that the new illustration is “wrong” too… Please do. I genuinely want to hear all the neep chat.