No. 32 - Fruit or Vegetable?

During dinner last night the subject of whether a tomato was a fruit or vegetable came up. My son asked for more ketchup and I asked him if he knew what vegetable it was made out of. I knew that a tomato is considered a fruit but didn't want to confuse him when I asked. A red fruit? Apple? After he guessed that it was a tomato, I then explained that it was a fruit. The next question, though, stumped me: Why?

The answer is that a tomato is both a fruit and a vegetable. It just depends on who you ask: a scientist or the grocer. Botanically, the tomato is a fruit because it is the mature ovaries (including the seeds) of a plant, but it is not as sweet as most foods eaten as a fruit. In cuisine, and U.S. tariff laws for that matter, tomatoes are considered vegetables. In 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court defined the tomato as a vegetable in Nix vs. Hedden, but acknowledged that it was botanically a fruit.

So, scientifically a tomato is the fruit of a tomato plant but is used as a vegetable in cooking. Got it? It seems the easiest way to determine whether something is a fruit or vegetable is to just ask the question: Does it have seeds? If yes, fruit. If no, vegetable. Other fruit that we would normally think of as a vegetable include cucumber, eggplant, and squash (including zucchini and pumpkin).

I'll finish with this quote I found explaining the difference between knowledge and wisdom: "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to put one in a fruit salad."