In the last “Question of Taste” exercise, we talked about the creeping ubiquity of pumpkin spice — up to and including pumpkin spiced sardines, pumpkin spiced motor oil and pumpkin spiced colonoscopy prep.

Even those who are tired of pumpkin spice — or have never been tempted by its sensorial charms — would agree that, across the board, pumpkin spice is probably better than turnip or rutabaga spice.

Which I bring up because, in Sir James George Fraser’s “The Golden Bough,” the massively influential text on Olde Gods and pagan cults, the reader learns the origins of the Jack-o’-Lanterns. Hollowed out pumpkins or root vegetables with grotesquely carved visages, and illuminated from inside by lit candles, were used by Gaelic citizens in Ireland and Scotland to symbolize or even ward off evil spirits during Samhain — the Celtic festival of the dead held every fall at halftime of the Ole Miss-LSU football game.

So, yes, turnips and rutabagas were just as common in this autumn ritual, and the point is that, while the tradition moved with immigrants to the U.S. and took root — ha! — with pumpkins, one supposes it could just as easily have been turnips that we carve every Halloween. And, given that pumpkins became THE symbol of fall for the American consumer — and its “spice” a perhaps inevitable by-product to enhance the season — we COULD be celebrating with a turnip icon.

As an experiment more idiotic than anthropological, we decided to substitute turnips for pumpkins this year. A few observations.

∎ It’s not easy to carve a turnip. I tried nose hair removal scissors first, then hobby/crafts blades, and failed miserably with each. I gave the ruined turnips to my wife Eileen, who then used the detritus to make a delicious turnip chili, which was super refreshing by the crackling hearth-fire while we enjoyed playoff baseball and sipped Samual Adams’ delightful turnip spiced autumn ale.

Fortified, I returned to the task of carving a Jack-o’-Turnip and found success! What happened is, I borrowed an yttrium-aluminum-garnet (YAG) laser — the kind you’d use while performing a percutaneous endoscopic lumbar discectomy for recurrent disc herniation – and presto! I was able to nuance on the face of the turnip a precise likeness of Leatherface from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

∎ It’s not easy to find candles small enough to light a Turnip-o’-Lantern.

∎ Speaking of candles, nothing quite captures the scent of the season like a jumbo jar-candle redolent of sizzling turnip.

∎ Facial expressions on baristas at Dunkin, Panera Bread and Starbucks ranged from puzzled to annoyed to homicidal when I asked in each for a large turnip-foam coffee. Dunkin had pumpkin spiced joe, of course and, as far as root vegetables go, a dark-blend parsnip flavored espresso. And Panera celebrated with a tasty rutabaga scone. But there was no turnip flavoring anywhere.

∎ Eileen and I have already been dis-invited from two Thanksgiving and three Christmas parties/meals after offering to bring side dishes like Eileen’s new turnip-and-cranberry casserole and turnip, chocolate and candy cane bark.

Oh, well. There IS a small bit of satisfaction in knowing we’re not the only ones trying to bring the aromatic and distinctive taste of turnip to October and beyond. For Halloween night’s trick-or-treaters, we just bought one of those 10-pound bags of trick of mini-sized candy bars that includes Twix, Snickers, Almond Joy, Milky Way — and Reese’s Turnip Butter Cups.