if you are the sort of person who argues a tomato is a fruit not a vegetable

[ethelb]

What you think a vegetable is?

'a plant or part of a plant used as food,' could include fruit

Hassled, by that definition then ALL fruits are also vegetables, like a sub set. Noooo!

Hassled so it includes fruit? So a tomato can be a vegetable then?

I thought fruit was anything that developed from a flower, eg tomato, strawberry, courgette, grape etc. more than about seeds being inside or out. As others say, veg is a wider grouping of foodstuffs.

austenozzy That doesn't mean a vegetable can't be a fruit though does it?

That is a correct botanical definition by the way though.

Tomatoes are cunts.

Best to avoid them entirely.

That's right Ethel. They're not mutually exclusive, so it's not an either/or thing. I think...

Anything with seeds in or on it is a fruit

Don't even get me started on the fuckers who argue mushrooms are plants....

Stratter the point is there is no point of differentiation

That makes me inordinately happy, ethel

And I agree with joffrey too, they give me rotten stomach acid!

Apparently bananas are berries.

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit

Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad

ShouldIWorry Sweetcorn has seeds on it. It is a fruit. So is rice. Rarely has anyone argued with me which I have referred to them as grains (or veg in the case of sweetcorn) though.

Wikipedia explains it better:

"Botanically, a tomato is a fruit: the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant. However, the tomato has a much lower sugar content than other edible fruits, and is therefore not as sweet. Typically served as part of a salad or main course of a meal, rather than at dessert, it is considered a vegetable for most culinary uses. One exception is that tomatoes are treated as a fruit in home canning practices: they are acidic enough to process in a water bath rather than a pressure cooker as vegetables require. Tomatoes are not the only food source with this ambiguity: green beans, eggplants, cucumbers, and squashes of all kinds (such as zucchini and pumpkins) are all botanically fruits, yet cooked as vegetables."

which=when

BabyGanoush It is knowledge but not understanding.

Nolim that wikipedia entry suggests that a vegetable that is a fruit is 'ambiguous'. No it isn't. It is just a sodding tomato.

limitedperiod a tomato is a berry too.

where are legumes in all of this ?

BTW I once heard a very Hyacynth Bucket type call them leg-oo-may, sort of rhyming with crudite LOL

A tomato is a fruit, I wouldn't make a big fuss about it if someone were to call it a vegetable though and might call it a vegetable in certain contexts. Likewise courgette, aubergine, cucumber etc. Just like I might call a strawberry or raspberry a berry even though I know they technically aren't and I probably wouldn't call a banana a berry even though I know they technically are as people would look at me like this.

The quote a PP mentioned about knowledge and wisdom is a good one. Knowing what is or isn't a fruit, berry, vegetable etc is knowledge, it may be useful in some contexts. mst of the time it really doesn't matter though.

If it develops from the flower and has seeds its a fruit. A vegetable is any other pert of a plant.

Are bananas bigger cunts than tomatoes? Yes.

A vegetable is any other pert of a plant.

You see there, you are making the incorrect assumption that there is anything remotely scientific about the definition of a vegetable.

TBF I don't recognise bananas as an edible food stuff.