Trivial Tuesdays - Fruit or vegetable

Last week, I got to tell you about ''Green Blood'' aka Chlorophyll, this week, we are continuing with the plant theme and resolving the confusing question: Fruit or vegetable? 

Q.6

What are love apples?

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A.6 

Tomatoes

         The appellation probably derives from the literal translation of french pomme d'amour which is believed to have come from the belief in the tomatoes' aphrodisiac properties or more likely from the transliteration of the Italien pomo dei Mori, "apples of the Moors". As interesting as this may be, let's get to the meat of the topic.

Tomatoes are fruit a fact well accepted by all - although, they are still found in the vegetable section of most grocery stores. Why this discrepancy you ask?

It's as simple as this: vegetable is a generic term used for all edible parts of garden plants; by this definition, a tomato is a vegetable. Botanically, their is no such thing as a vegetable. A plant is composed of roots (6), stem (4), leaves (1), flowers (2), fruits (3), and seeds (5) (some plants have additional or different structures but generally you're safe with these).

A tomato is a fruit because it comes from a flower and contains seeds. Can you list other vegetable-fruits or fruit-vegetables?

Pepper, eggplant, pumpkin, squash, cucumber, just to name a few.

What veggy-fruits do you eat?

Next week: What does MSG stand for? and an added bonus explanation of why so many people try to avoid it. 

Take care!

 

References :

"love apple." The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. Answers.com 18 May. 2010. http://www.answers.com/topic/love-apple

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