Errbuddy wanna talk about tomatoes but the real question is, are bananas fruit? Some varietals are sweet and clearly belong in desserts and fruit salads, some are savory and starchy like potatoes, depending on the culinary tradition you come from they're used in both contexts, and they can and should have seeds but they don't due to selective breeding. Tomatoes exist in an ambiguous state, but bananas are somehow both at all times.
do you know how this meme or bell curves work? should be the dummy saying vegetable, the majority saying fruit, and the genius (on the right...) saying it's a vegetable
Why would the genius say something wrong like that? Tomatoes are fruit - grows on the vine, contains seeds inside it, fruits regularly without destroying the parent plant.
The genius would be saying that because the genius understands that when this question is asked, it only makes sense from a culinary viewpoint, not a biological one
mushrooms are not fruits in any sense. Fruiting body is applied colloquially however since spores are not fruits this is also incorrect.
However much like with calling a tomato a fruit, it's perfectly clear to call the penis loo lookin' thing a fruiting body and only derranged pedants are bothered by it.
Fruits are a specific part of the plant, the seed-bearing part (pods and ferns are the exceptions, I guess). Veggies are the rest of the plant. Mushrooms are fungi's and all, don't get me wrong, but they're not plants
The problem with the culinary term "vegetable" is that, properly, it applies to any edible part of a plant, and improperly, it's basically a useless distinction.
I don't think vegetable sounds right either. No one crushes up broccoli or carrots to make sauce for pizza and you don't add tomatoes to your roast veggies.
Not sure where I said that, I was referring to nachorella's comment up thread. If you want to know my definition, it's pretty much aligned with the science definition. Fruits: the parts of the plant containing seeds (with the exception of pods). Vegetables: the rest of the plant (including pods)
I love playing around with recipes so have indeed made broc and carrot sauces, but this is kind of all about what feels right to say. And I think that there's a lot of cases where it feels wrong to describe tomato as a vegetable. Kind of how I'd feel odd calling lettuce a vegetable.
First, eggplants and zucchini are fruits too, and both are sweet, just not banana-sweet (in fact, try zucchini bread if you haven't - best shit ever). Second, many veggies are sweet, like carrots, onions (though it's masked until cooked), and ...uh... sweet potatoes. Third, good tomatoes are absolutely sweet, not like candy but especially the little salad tomatoes aren't very far removed from a grape, which I think we agree are a fruit. Then there's olives, that bizarrely savory, dark fruit. They're delicious but I'm pretty sure they're from another planet.
So overall I think, if we're going to go by flavor, then imo acidity is the least ambiguous differentiator. Still not perfect, I'd rather just call it a fruit if it has seeds and isn't a pod. I'll give it to you on texture though
