Swede Turnip

This yellow variety that she refers to is the same variety that accompanies haggis and mixes so well with Orkney Clapshot. It is a variety of Brassica Campestris, which is known as a Swedish turnip, swede or Rutabaga – Brassica Napus. It came from Sweden to Scotland in the late eighteenth century and is known in England as a swede. Brassica Rapa, the white-fleshed cultivated turnip, is the plant from which many other turnips, oil seed rape and many varieties of Chinese cabbage, have been developed. Brassica Rapa is related to the ordinary cabbage and was originally crossed with it to form the swede. It is likely that swedes first appeared in medieval gardens where turnips and varieties of cabbage were growing together.