Which is the fruit and which the vegetable?

This is not at all an original thought - there are heaps of websites out there which answer the question, but it was something we were talking about over dinner and we couldn't quite decide on the definition, though I think I was more or less right.

Apparently it actually depends on whether you are talking to a botanist or a cook - well broadly speaking, but obviously there are other professions who might take one or the other approach.

The 'correct' and scientific definition of a fruit is a seed-bearing structure emanating from the ovary of a flowering plant. A vegetable is formed from other parts of the plant - root, stem, leaf, even the flower itself. Hence the aubergine/eggplant pictured above is actually a fruit and the rhubarb is a vegetable. Other fruits using this definition are - pumpkins, cucumber, capsicum, zucchini, peas, beans and other legumes, nuts and even grain. Vegetable fruits are rhubarb (stems) and pineapples (flower). I can't quite think of any other examples here.

But in practice fruit and vegetables are defined by their usage really and this basically means whether they are sweet or savoury. Though I think one could argue about some vegetables under this definition being sweet - corn, carrots, tomatoes even, and some fruit (lemons, limes?) being savoury - or at least sour.

So does it matter? Not really. Although it mattered to the Americans in 1893 who had the Supreme Court rule that tomatoes were vegetable rather than fruit, because imported vegetables had a higher tax on them than fruit. (You'd have thought it was the other way round wouldn't you?). I don't know whether this still applies.

Also most dieticians will tell you that you should have seven serves of vegetables per day and two of fruit. So it matters which is which. And it seems that 'common' usage wins the day. We all have in our mind what is a fruit and what is a vegetable. It's just the tomato that we sometimes have difficulty with. Particularly now that the cherry tomato is so widely available. I sometimes eat them like fruit as a snack - as does my granddaughter.