What vegetable was originally used to carve jack-o’-lanterns before pumpkins?

Before pumpkins became the Halloween staple, people in Ireland and Scotland carved turnips and potatoes into lanterns. These carved vegetables were inspired by the legend of “Stingy Jack,” a man who tricked the devil and was doomed to roam the night with a hollowed-out turnip lit by a coal. When Irish immigrants came to America, they found pumpkins — larger and easier to carve — and quickly adopted them as the new choice for jack-o’-lanterns.