Rutabaga (; North American English) or swede (English English and some Commonwealth English) is a root vegetable, a form of Brassica napus (which also includes rapeseed). Other names include Swedish turnip, neep (Scots), and turnip (Scottish and Canadian English, Irish English and Manx English, as well as some dialects of English in Northern England). However, elsewhere, the name "turnip" usually refers to the related white turnip. The species Brassica napus originated as a hybrid between the cabbage (Brassica oleracea) and the turnip (Brassica rapa). Rutabaga roots are eaten as human food in various ways, and the leaves can be eaten as a leaf vegetable. The roots and tops are also used for livestock, fed directly in the winter or foraged in the field during the other seasons. Scotland, Northern and Western England, Wales, the Isle of Man, and Ireland had a tradition of carving the roots into Jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween.
Etymology
Rutabaga has many national and regional names. Rutabaga is the common North American term for the plant. This comes from the Swedish dialectal word , from rot (root) + bagge (lump, bunch). In the U.S., the plant is also known as Swedish turnip or yellow turnip.
The term swede (from "Swedish turnip") is used in many Commonwealth Nations, including much of the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The name turnip is also used in parts of Northern and Midland England, the West Country (particularly Cornwall), Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Canada. In Wales, according to region, it is variously known as , , or in Welsh, and as swede or turnip in English.
In Scotland, it is known as turnip, tumshie (also used as a pejorative term for foolish or stupid people), or neep (from Old English , Latin ). Some areas of south-east Scotland, such as Berwickshire and Roxburghshire, still use the term baigie, possibly a derivative of the Swedish dialectal word . The term turnip is also used for the white turnip (Brassica rapa ssp rapa).
Some will also refer to both swede and (white) turnip as just turnip (this word is also derived from næp). In north-east England, turnips and swedes are colloquially called snadgers, snaggers (archaic) or narkies. Rutabaga is also known as moot in the Isle of Man and the Manx language word for turnip is napin.
Its common name in Sweden is (literally "cabbage/kale root"). Similarly, in Denmark it is known as and , while in Norway it is known as or and in Estonia as . It is called similarly in Dutch. It is sometimes confused with kohlrabi in Denmark, Norway, and the Netherlands. The Finnish term is . The Romanian term is . Rutabaga is known by many different regional names in German, of which and are the most widespread and most commonly used in lists of ingredients; the former is typically used in Austria to mean kohlrabi.
History
The first known printed reference to the rutabaga comes from the Swiss botanist Gaspard Bauhin in 1620, where he notes that it was growing wild in Sweden. It is often considered to have originated in Scandinavia, Finland or Russia. According to the Natural Resources Institute of Finland (Luke), rutabaga or lanttu was most likely bred on more than one occasion in Northern Europe around the 16th century. Studies by former MTT (now Luke) have shown that lanttu was developed independently in Finland and Sweden from turnip and cabbage in connection with seed cultivation. There are contradictory accounts of how rutabaga arrived in England. Some sources say it arrived in England from Germany, while other accounts support Swedish origins. According to John Sinclair, the root vegetable arrived in England from Germany around 1750. Rutabaga arrived in Scotland by way of Sweden around 1781.
An article in The Gardeners' Chronicle suggests that the rutabaga was introduced more widely to England in 1790. Introduction to North America came in the early 19th century with reports of rutabaga crops in Illinois as early as 1817. In 1835, a rutabaga fodder crop was recommended to New York farmers in the Genesee River valley.
Rutabaga was once considered a food of last resort in both Germany and France due to its association with food shortages in World War I and World War II. Boiled stew with rutabaga and water as the only ingredients (Steckrübeneintopf) was a typical food in Germany during the famines and food shortages of World War I caused by the Allied blockade (the Steckrübenwinter or Turnip Winter of 1916–17) and between 1945 and 1949. As a result, many older Germans had unhappy memories of this food.