Is a tomato a Vegetale or a fruit?

@joefromchicago,

Oy vey.

0 Replies

@wmwcjr,

wmwcjr wrote:

Yes, it is. Why, I don't know. Alas, the world is full of dark mysteries for which there is no answer.

BBB provided the reason, burried in her long cut and paste job:

Quote:

Fruit or vegetable?

This dispute has led to legal speculation in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws that imposed a duty on vegetables, but not on fruits, caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this controversy on May 10, 1893, by declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, based on the popular definition that classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert (Nix v. Hedden (149 U.S. 304)).[58] The holding of this case applies only to the interpretation of the Tariff Act of March 3, 1883, and the court did not purport to reclassify the tomato for botanical or other purposes.

It's interesting, the self-serving rationalizations, based on myopic culturocentrisim that were used to come to this legal decision. In tropical and other regions of the world fruits are regular ingredients in food prepared for dinner.

1 Reply

@Val Killmore,

Quote:

farmerman wrote:
ANYWAY, a tomato is a berry.

And all berries are in the category of fruit, so what's your point?

Youve apparently totally ignored the first part of my post in order to post clip of my second part . And you missed the clever transitional word "ANYWAY".
SInce I was saying that this "argument" is only meaningful as a differentiator between botany and cooking , perhaps you were confused or didnt understand.
Botanically "Simple" fleshy fruits are pomes, drupes or berries to be specific Dried fruits are siliques legumes achenes etc and aggregate fruits (which we all call berries but are botanically not) contain many that we consider as vegetables also and , of course there are multiple frits which, I believe is the pineapple (Many flowers coalescing into one delicious fruit)

If the point about there being a greater categorical complexity than merely "veggie or fruit" bores you, well , nothin I can do about that .

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

It's interesting, the self-serving rationalizations, based on myopic culturocentrisim that were used to come to this legal decision. In tropical and other regions of the world fruits are regular ingredients in food prepared for dinner.

That's true, of course; however the SCOTUS decision was meant to apply only to a particular region of the Northern hemisphere and this, largely, just for tariff purposes. I see no culturocentrism here except in the most narrow sense of the word. The decision was, after all, culture-specific and quite accurate in its understanding of how North Americans view fruits and vegetables.

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@farmerman,

Not at all bored by the complexity of categorizing a specimen. I just posted a tongue in cheek question to imply why you're redundantly deviating to the details of the matter since BBB's pasted chunk of information mentions that fact already.

1 Reply

@Val Killmore,

Val Killmore wrote:

Not at all bored by the complexity of categorizing a specimen. I just posted a tongue in cheek question to imply why you're redundantly deviating to the details of the matter since BBB's pasted chunk of information mentions that fact already.

You're assuming that somebody actually read that loooooong cut-and-paste post all the way through? (Well, InfraBlue apparently did; he was able to pick out one of the parts I'd missed, i.e. the Supreme Court case which classified the tom as a veg.)

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

A point well made. Since I skimmed through the entire chunk of info, I assumed everyone did.

1 Reply

@Val Killmore,

I scanned the first few paragraphs to make sure I understood what the post was about, that's all.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

I hadda waste perfectly good time that I could be spending fixing my dog his breakfast but NOOOO, I hadda scan back through BBB's post (which is, I might add, absent a decent table of contents) to find the word "Berry".

Now my dog is all, like,'Whats with you man Im starving"
and Im like"Shut
up or Ill pull out your stitches"

0 Replies

Lustig Andrei wrote:

InfraBlue wrote:

It's interesting, the self-serving rationalizations, based on myopic culturocentrisim that were used to come to this legal decision. In tropical and other regions of the world fruits are regular ingredients in food prepared for dinner.

The decision was, after all, culture-specific and quite accurate in its understanding of how North Americans view fruits and vegetables.

That is precisely why this decision was cultrocentric. It’s point of view was based narrowly on the presumptions of the northern portion of the Northern hemisphere and not on objectivity. To arrive at this decision the court included beans under the term “vegetables” as well.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

Oh fer Chrissake . . . you're missing the point that the decision was likely motivated by import laws, not culture.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

No **** the decision was motivated by import tarrifs. You're missing the point that that decision, which was motivated by import tarrifs as concerned West Indian tomatoes, was based on an interpretation based on culture, the way the northern portion of the Northern hemisphere regards fruits and vegetables, and not what objectively defines them.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

I doubt that decisions made in a Southern hemisphere country would have been made on grounds other than cultural custom. What's your point? Really.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

The distinction isn't between Northern and Southern hemisphere notions of what define fruits and vegetables, but very specifically the notions of the northern Northern Hempisphere.

I was pointing out the culturocentrism of that decision.

0 Replies

Is a tomato a Vegetale or a fruit?

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