LogFAQs > #964354596

THEGODDAMNBATMA posted...

From a culinary standpoint, that is.

So many of the things we call "vegetables" are actually fruits. People assume the debate is just centered around tomatoes, but that's not the case. Peppers, avocados, cucumbers, olives, CORN!??

From a culinary standpoint, the point of differentiating is because fruits and vegetables have different flavor profiles and tend to be cooked in different ways as different parts of a meal.

From a strict scientific standpoint, the differentiation between the two helps you understand how the plant grows and why it grows the way it does.

So a scientist will say that a tomato is a fruit because of how it grows and its function in plant reproduction, but a cook will say it's a vegetable because of how it tastes, how you eat it, and what sort of dishes you cook with it - and which definition is more useful depends on why you're asking the question.

If anything, the real problem is that science chose to use terminology that already had thousands of years worth of established assumptions and expectations that ran counter to the scientific nature of things, so if anything, science is the one that's wrong.

So fuck you, a tomato's a vegetable.