The Lemon Fool

AiY - if you like turnip soup, I recommend you search “singing swede”.

Q. Are turnips merely "oven ready" tomatoes?

servodude wrote:.... I totally agree with the point that the first thing to do is choose your crops wisely based on what you can easily do!

A couple of years ago the BBC Food Programme was all over 'food miles'. And quite right too.
Then that was abandoned in favour of .. we must support the growers in the third world...

There's nothing so sensible that it cannot be sacrificed to political correctness.

A previous owner of our cottage told me that when they bought it in 1972 what is now the main lawn was planted with leeks, which for us are now banished to the veggie field and this year have been attacked by root fly. We did grow turnips once, but found them uninspiring. Celeriac grows well for us.
The whole notion of the 'cottage garden' is a relatively modern construct, all the land would have been given over to crops, chicken, rabbits, etc, including roots and perhaps even turnips.

Food miles should be part of the traffic light labelling scheme that will never happen.

V8

88V8 wrote:Food miles should be part of the traffic light labelling scheme that will never happen.

V8

Not all food miles are bad! We had food coming from around the world in the days of wind-powered shipping. Even some fresh tropical fruits - like bananas and pineapples - pre-date air miles. And even airmiles may be less harmful than using heating to grow non-native or out-of-season crops like, erm, commercial-scale tomatoes.

As for the mediterranean, I recollect nearly 15 years ago as a Stobart shareholder watching the story of them introducing the regular freight train service from Spain, carrying fresh produce through the tunnel for Tesco.

As we would say up here, that Coffey quine's a richt neep.

88V8 wrote: The whole notion of the 'cottage garden' is a relatively modern construct, all the land would have been given over to crops, chicken, rabbits, etc, including roots and perhaps even turnips.


V8

turnips are a follow on veg in kitchen gardening on the whole (after early potatoes in the same ground)

See this from a wartime dig for victory poster
https://dig-for-victory.org.uk/growing- ... ew-series/#

I find that DFV info really interesting and useful to me a rubbish, clueless veggy gardener!

UncleEbenezer wrote:

88V8 wrote:Food miles should be part of the traffic light labelling scheme that will never happen.

V8

Not all food miles are bad! We had food coming from around the world in the days of wind-powered shipping. Even some fresh tropical fruits - like bananas and pineapples - pre-date air miles. And even airmiles may be less harmful than using heating to grow non-native or out-of-season crops like, erm, commercial-scale tomatoes.

As for the mediterranean, I recollect nearly 15 years ago as a Stobart shareholder watching the story of them introducing the regular freight train service from Spain, carrying fresh produce through the tunnel for Tesco.

Indeed. My missus is from Tassie and they were sending apples from there literally half way around the world to the UK.
It was their second biggest industry (behind lumber) for the best part of a century. Stopping overnight in 1973 when the UK joined the EEC; half their trees were pulled up, and orchards destroyed to make way for other stuff.
Fortunately it's a place where just about anything grows well - poppies being particularly popular as a ccrop over the past few years.

But unless you have a particularly narrow palate or heavy opium addiction you'll do better in the long run if you specialise and trade

-sd

servodude wrote:

Nimrod103 wrote: What do you find objectionable in her? Is it because she is fat? Admit it.

AIUI she is the only science graduate in the cabinet, so she is obviously not thick. She has emphasised that we should be eating more environmentally friendly foods, rather than importing from thousands of miles away or growing under glass with heat. Do you think so many of our foods should require such a high input of fossil fuels?

Says more about the cabinet that she IS the only science grad on it than anything else

No, there have never been many scientists in any government. Scientists need to specialise early and so typically and routinely lack the breadth of knowledge and experience to succeed in governance, where a big picture vision is needed.

Thatcher being the exception that proves the rule, of course.

Lootman wrote:

servodude wrote: Says more about the cabinet that she IS the only science grad on it than anything else

No, there have never been many scientists in any government. Scientists need to specialise early and so typically and routinely lack the breadth of knowledge and experience to succeed in governance, where a big picture vision is needed.

Thatcher being the exception that proves the rule, of course.

you know what prove means?

servodude wrote:

Lootman wrote: No, there have never been many scientists in any government. Scientists need to specialise early and so typically and routinely lack the breadth of knowledge and experience to succeed in governance, where a big picture vision is needed.

Thatcher being the exception that proves the rule, of course.

you know what prove means?

Happy to be proven wrong. But the concept that left-brain folks specialise is hardly radical or controversial.

servodude wrote:

Lootman wrote: No, there have never been many scientists in any government. Scientists need to specialise early and so typically and routinely lack the breadth of knowledge and experience to succeed in governance, where a big picture vision is needed.

Thatcher being the exception that proves the rule, of course.

you know what prove means?

Oh, I've had this argument a number of times on other forums and it can get very bad-tempered! How on EARTH does an exception to a rule 'prove' it?

I posit that an 'exception' disproves <whatever> rule is claimed to be proved. An exception to a rule illustrates said rule is a load of ol' borrocks in fact, to use a technical term.

Mike4 wrote:
Oh, I've had this argument a number of times on other forums and it can get very bad-tempered! How on EARTH does an exception to a rule 'prove' it?

I posit that an 'exception' disproves <whatever> rule is claimed to be proved. An exception to a rule illustrates said rule is a load of ol' borrocks in fact, to use a technical term.

Is that you channeling Richard Fenyman from beyond the veil?

Fenyman wrote:“The exception proves that the rule is wrong. If there is an exception to any rule, and if it can be proved by observation, that rule is wrong.”

- sound chap, good thinker and apparently not bad at the bongos - I think he would have liked your version also

Generally the idiom is "meant" to suggest that if there are only a few exceptions to a literal rule (as in a thing one should obey) then there must be a general rule
For example "Smoking allowed with port" suggests that otherwise you ought not spark up - "no talking after lights out" that kind of thing

It also has acquired a side order of "prove" in the archaic "test" as might be applied to a youth proving themselves in battle (where most things are not taken literally ... "Stanhope! Stop forging stuff we've got to go over the top") - but to be honest that sounds like a backfill

As with a lot of English idioms - it gets conflated, confused and misused to mean "well if I'm wrong about that then the rest of it must be right"
- in which cases "borrocks" sounds about right

-sd

Turnip Recipes.

52 posts (with regular levels of topic drift), and none yet has suggested any turnip recipe that inspires me to try it. Ho, hum.

servodude wrote: Generally the idiom is "meant" to suggest that if there are only a few exceptions to a literal rule (as in a thing one should obey) then there must be a general rule
For example "Smoking allowed with port" suggests that otherwise you ought not spark up - "no talking after lights out" that kind of thing

It also has acquired a side order of "prove" in the archaic "test" as might be applied to a youth proving themselves in battle (where most things are not taken literally ... "Stanhope! Stop forging stuff we've got to go over the top") - but to be honest that sounds like a backfill

As with a lot of English idioms - it gets conflated, confused and misused to mean "well if I'm wrong about that then the rest of it must be right"
- in which cases "borrocks" sounds about right

Indeedie. The etymology is about testing. Latin "probare" becomes both "probe" and "prove". The absolute proof is the most widespread but not the only modern usage.

Maybe we can make a high-proof liquor from turnips? But I think I want a tomato in mine!

UncleEbenezer wrote:

servodude wrote: Generally the idiom is "meant" to suggest that if there are only a few exceptions to a literal rule (as in a thing one should obey) then there must be a general rule
For example "Smoking allowed with port" suggests that otherwise you ought not spark up - "no talking after lights out" that kind of thing

It also has acquired a side order of "prove" in the archaic "test" as might be applied to a youth proving themselves in battle (where most things are not taken literally ... "Stanhope! Stop forging stuff we've got to go over the top") - but to be honest that sounds like a backfill

As with a lot of English idioms - it gets conflated, confused and misused to mean "well if I'm wrong about that then the rest of it must be right"
- in which cases "borrocks" sounds about right

Indeedie. The etymology is about testing. Latin "probare" becomes both "probe" and "prove". The absolute proof is the most widespread but not the only modern usage.

Maybe we can make a high-proof liquor from turnips? But I think I want a tomato in mine!

Google suggests Wildschönau Krautinger
- intrigued... but not enough to order some

UncleEbenezer wrote:Turnip Recipes.

52 posts (with regular levels of topic drift), and none yet has suggested any turnip recipe that inspires me to try it. Ho, hum.

Masses of interesting sounding recipes on Google!!

Tricia

Mike4 wrote:

servodude wrote: you know what prove means?

Oh, I've had this argument a number of times on other forums and it can get very bad-tempered! How on EARTH does an exception to a rule 'prove' it?

I posit that an 'exception' disproves <whatever> rule is claimed to be proved. An exception to a rule illustrates said rule is a load of ol' borrocks in fact, to use a technical term.

Isn't it simple? Doesn't "proves the rule" in this case mean "tests the rule"? But it doesn't say anything about the result!

I see Lootman is once again taking his usual "biases" for a walk round the block.

6Tricia wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:Turnip Recipes.

52 posts (with regular levels of topic drift), and none yet has suggested any turnip recipe that inspires me to try it. Ho, hum.

Masses of interesting sounding recipes on Google!!

Tricia

pickled turnip!
https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recip ... nip-recipe

turnip jam!
https://htgetrid.com/en/varene-iz-terna ... tovleniya/

turnip pie!
https://www.thegrahamstable.com/post/turnip-pie

turnip soup!
https://www.eatingwell.com/recipe/25280 ... rnip-soup/

As a child the best use of a turnip was to hollow it out, cut a face in it and put a small candle in for Halloween.

If Coffey gets to be chancellor she may role that one out as an alternative to the fuel charge support- light, heat and a free roasted veg dish

XFool wrote:

Mike4 wrote: Oh, I've had this argument a number of times on other forums and it can get very bad-tempered! How on EARTH does an exception to a rule 'prove' it?

I posit that an 'exception' disproves <whatever> rule is claimed to be proved. An exception to a rule illustrates said rule is a load of ol' borrocks in fact, to use a technical term.

Isn't it simple? Doesn't "proves the rule" in this case mean "tests the rule"? But it doesn't say anything about the result!

Sort of. The idea is really that there is no such thing as a universal rule that always applies. Such a rule is most likely a tautology. But a rule that allows for exceptions is indicative that it is a meaningful real world empirical rule, rather than something that is true a priori.

A concept related to the problem of induction.

So in this context, there is no rule or law that states that scientists lack the capacity to be political leaders. But it is rare enough for that to be indicative that such specialisations render one unlikely to rise to that level in almost all cases.