Large Heavy Vegetables and Rap Music

March 23, 2012 7:12 AM

In September 2011, Welshman Ian Neale, claimed to have grown the world's heaviest swede. This bold claim caught the eye of Snoop Dogg who invited him via youtube to attend his gig in Cardiff so they could chat about horticultural matters.

Mr Neale previously held the record for a beetroot which weighed in at 51.5lb (23.4kg).

posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth (50 comments total)

DELIGHTFUL
posted by saladin at 7:16 AM on March 23, 2012 [5 favorites]

Whatever, let's see him grow the world's heaviest Swede.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:17 AM on March 23, 2012 [5 favorites]

The world's heaviest Swede is this guy. No one should try to break that record.
posted by ymgve at 7:21 AM on March 23, 2012 [4 favorites]

He was chuffed. Then he puffed. Life is good.

And, WTF is a swede?
posted by Benny Andajetz at 7:22 AM on March 23, 2012

And, WTF is a swede?

The newest synonym for "joint" and it's about time one showed up
posted by theodolite at 7:22 AM on March 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

And, WTF is a swede?

Well, the English eat it, so you know it's either a root vegetable or a meat pie. In this case, it's a root vegetable. Specifically, I think it's a rutabaga.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 7:23 AM on March 23, 2012 [27 favorites]

This is so fucking awesome and I'm feeling so chuffed right now. I would also like to see how big Mr. Neale can grow Snoop's vegetables.
posted by dubitable at 7:24 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

I take five minutes to comment and someone beats me to a Jonny Wahlqvist joke?

Sometimes I hate this place.
posted by Trurl at 7:24 AM on March 23, 2012 [6 favorites]

Wikipedia says rutabaga.
posted by octothorpe at 7:24 AM on March 23, 2012

Bulgaroktonos: Hey, that's unfair! And untrue!

It could also have been a curry.
posted by Mr. Excellent at 7:25 AM on March 23, 2012 [7 favorites]

I could read the sentence "This bold claim caught the eye of Snoop Dogg who invited him via youtube to attend his gig in Cardiff so they could chat about horticultural matters" all day. I could have "This bold claim caught the eye of Snoop Dogg who invited him via youtube to attend his gig in Cardiff so they could chat about horticultural matters" engraved on my tombstone and it would mark the final resting place of a man who died happy.

This bold claim caught the eye of Snoop Dogg who invited him via youtube to attend his gig in Cardiff so they could chat about horticultural matters.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 7:25 AM on March 23, 2012 [31 favorites]

I am convinced the Sky News reader didn't know what that green foliage behind Snoop was at the beginning. He's so po-faced there and then at the end (because the offsite reporter clearly knows) he's figured it out and laughing.
posted by chavenet at 7:25 AM on March 23, 2012

Had it been a turnip, we could have been making oodles of Blackadder jokes.

As it stands, I must simply report that rutabaga fries are delicious.
posted by Sticherbeast at 7:25 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

The newest synonym for "joint" and it's about time one showed up

Oh, so it's like a Camberwell Carrot?
posted by zamboni at 7:26 AM on March 23, 2012 [4 favorites]

I can tell I'm getting old and irrelevant, because new drug slang has stopped seeming clever and started seeming totally unnecessary. We've already got several hundred perfectly good ways to say "joint"! Just pick one! Damn kids mutter mutter lawn mutter mutter rutabaga.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:27 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

Fo' Sweezel!
posted by chillmost at 7:29 AM on March 23, 2012

"I had a smoke with him. I don't smoke, but he offered me one, so I took one!"

"I'm hoping that was just tobacco."

"No, it wasn't!"
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 7:29 AM on March 23, 2012 [13 favorites]

Ah, perhaps I should have included a link to wikipedia's disambiguation page for swede. Despite having lived on both sides of the Atlantic in English speaking places, I just realized that a rutabaga is a swede; and that only folks in England, Ireland, Wales, New Zealand and Australia use the term!
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 7:30 AM on March 23, 2012

My husband, the Scot, calls them neeps.

Which is not to be confused with a turnip, which is something different except when it's not.
posted by like_neon at 7:30 AM on March 23, 2012 [2 favorites]

Loved his little giggle after saying, "No it wasn't!"
posted by Brocktoon at 7:36 AM on March 23, 2012

Nice shirt
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 7:36 AM on March 23, 2012

Hey is this where we talk about incomprehensible drug slang? Becauase Das Racist keep using "L" or "el" as a synonym for some sort of joint -- rollin' Ls, smokin' Ls -- and I have no idea what they're referring to. Which is weird because one of the two dudes and I were sort of on the peripheries of one another's social circles in high school
posted by griphus at 7:38 AM on March 23, 2012

"So Ian Neale from Cardiff, come see ya boy Snoop Dogg."

I'm dying. I'm dying from charm.
posted by pts at 7:39 AM on March 23, 2012 [7 favorites]

Sometime around a decade ago or so, Snoop Dogg turned into a creepy old man.
posted by item at 7:42 AM on March 23, 2012

So do the kids say "Don't jolie my swede" now?
posted by Trurl at 7:43 AM on March 23, 2012

I liked that Ian's vegetables are gendered.
posted by likeso at 7:45 AM on March 23, 2012

Bulgaroktonos: "Well, the English eat it, so you know it's either a root vegetable or a meat pie. In this case, it's a root vegetable. "

My dad grew up in a mining town full of Welsh and Cornish immigrants and he grew up eating ... root vegetables and meat pies. There's even a meat pie factory there.
posted by octothorpe at 7:46 AM on March 23, 2012

Rispekt!
posted by joecacti at 7:49 AM on March 23, 2012

There's even a meat pie factory there.

Don't go calling a pasty a pie, not unless you're looking for bloodshed.
posted by howfar at 7:49 AM on March 23, 2012 [2 favorites]

Hey is this where we talk about incomprehensible drug slang? Becauase Das Racist keep using "L" or "el" as a synonym for some sort of joint -- rollin' Ls, smokin' Ls -- and I have no idea what they're referring to.

An El Producto is a preferred cigar to roll joints. [Remove tobacco, then add your "own"]
That's where the EL comes from.
posted by TangerineGurl at 7:52 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Mr. Dogg" Heh.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:52 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

The title of this post is full of win.
posted by ob at 7:54 AM on March 23, 2012

L's are blunts, not joints.

lol drug pedantry
posted by elizardbits at 7:57 AM on March 23, 2012 [2 favorites]

The swede is, confusingly enough, often called a 'turnip' in Cornwall. And a pasty isn't a pasty without some swede in it. In the unlikely even you're ever in Bodmin, I recommend trying one of Malcolm Barnecutt's pork and swede pasties - they're pretty good.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 8:01 AM on March 23, 2012

Especially with a joint.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 8:01 AM on March 23, 2012

Hey is this where we talk about incomprehensible drug slang? Becauase Das Racist keep using "L" or "el" as a synonym for some sort of joint -- rollin' Ls, smokin' Ls -- and I have no idea what they're referring to.

A friend of mine once told me that refers to a blunt - as popularized by LL Cool J, hence, an L. I hadn't heard the El Producto explanation, which sounds equally plausible.
posted by Vhanudux at 8:07 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

I have to hand it to Snoop. Bridging the gap between the US West Coast rap community and Welsh Farmers isn't easy. Concentrating on the things we have in common will bring cultures together. This whole affair should be an after-school special.
posted by demiurge at 8:21 AM on March 23, 2012 [16 favorites]

Yes, possibly the greatest building of bridges between the street and the valleys since this.
posted by ob at 8:40 AM on March 23, 2012

Think about where Wales is within Great Britain. It's just a West Coast thang.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:43 AM on March 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

I wrote about rutabagas/swedes in this LH post, quoting Ogden Nash ("We gobbled like pigs/ On rutabagas and salted figs"); in the comments you will find some recipes if you're a braver eater than I.
posted by languagehat at 9:06 AM on March 23, 2012

===★
posted by griphus at 9:10 AM on March 23, 2012 [2 favorites]

I don't know what the best part is.

1.) The reporter's "respect" after Snoop Dogg's clip
2.) The reporter referring to Snoop as Mr. Dogg
3.) The fact that the man held his VIP pass up for two-plus minutes after pulling it out.
4.) "I had a smoke with him. I don't smoke, but he offered me one, so I took one."
posted by CancerStick at 9:15 AM on March 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

I've also heard joints referred to as "Ls" due to the paper configuration.

When rolling with one paper isn't quite enough, you add a second paper to the end to form an "L". Just increases the surface area slightly to fit more inside...
posted by Anizev at 9:32 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

I never knew that Snoop was so into farming!
posted by BostonEnginerd at 9:46 AM on March 23, 2012 [1 favorite]

My brother, a life-long vegetable aficianado, was running sound for Snoop at a show about ten years ago, when Snoop offered him some of his own vegetables. My brother claims to have never in his life come across vegetables of this quality before or since.

True story.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:24 AM on March 23, 2012 [5 favorites]

I work for a higher end local chain of gardening stores. Last month we had "vendor night" a meet-and-greet with the manufacturers of the products we carry. If the vendor's are to be believed, you would be amazed at what the marijuana growing industry has done in terms of advancing horticultural technology. Of course, none of them would ever say that straight out ... I heard a lot of "... we came up with this formulation after getting a lot of feedback from, ahem, farmers in the Mendocino/northern costal area.".
posted by echolalia67 at 12:04 PM on March 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

If the vendor's are to be believed, you would be amazed at what the marijuana growing industry has done in terms of advancing horticultural technology.

Well, they get their starts early. My high school had a student organization called the "Lawn Maintenance Club" that some how managed to fool the administration in to thinking that they were about mowing or something. A subset of the club was also spent a lot of their time with the biology teacher looking of tips on growing hydroponic "tomatoes."

I'm not a pot smoker, so given the amount of time and energy they put into it, I sort of wanted them to grow some actual tomatoes.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:04 PM on March 23, 2012 [3 favorites]

This is great! What a cute old man.
BTW...no one rolls joints with cigar wrappers...they roll blunts.
posted by schyler523 at 1:30 PM on March 23, 2012

I haven't stopped grinning since I first started reading/watching this post. The Sky News interview with Ian Neale was just so sweet and when he forgot to stop holding up his VIP badge I wanted to give him a big hug. To see that Snoop Dogg was wearing a Welsh rugby shirt to celebrate Wales winning the Grand Slam was just the icing on the cake.

According to the BBC article in the OP, Ian Neale is from Newport, not Cardiff - he definitely doesn't have a Cardiff accent (I'd say it was more of a valleys accent but I've lived away from Wales for too long).

(Swede is very popular in Wales, not only in broths and soups but in potch - mashed swede, carrots and/or potatoes with a sprinkle of nutmeg.)
posted by humph at 2:08 PM on March 23, 2012

While on the subject of Mr. Dogg, check out the house mix he shared with the world. If you like Techno, you'll likely dig his mix.

Sorry to send you to a Gawker link, those of you what don't care for Gawker, but its the one I have.
posted by Joey Michaels at 7:23 PM on March 23, 2012