Today I’m hoping to lay this age-old question to rest. There’s a short botany lesson involved, but it will be fun – I promise! Just stick with me and in a few short paragraphs I’ll explain exactly why the answer to the question posed in the headline is Yes.
Yes, a tomato is a fruit. And yes a tomato is a vegetable. It just depends on which lingo you’re using, because where people get confused on this issue is at the intersection of Kitchen-Talk and Science-Speak.
In the science of botany, the word “fruit” means something very specific – it’s essentially a synonym for ovary. A fruit is a plant part that develops from a flower and contains the seeds of the plant. Obviously, in this sense of the word, a tomato is a fruit.
Do you know what else is considered fruit, in the pure botanical sense of the word? Apples, peaches, and cherries. (No surprise there!) Also, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, beans, and squash. They are all ovaries, and they all contain seeds.
But you may be surprised to learn that the seed pods of flowering plants like poppies and columbine are also considered fruit, botanically speaking. In the same vein, acorns are the fruit of the oak tree. And when you blow on a dandelion for amusement, do you know which part of the plant is floating away in the breeze? Yup, our botanist friends tell us it’s the fruit that’s attached to that tiny parachute, and each fruit contains a single seed.
image source: Morgue File
But here’s the thing – the science of botany assigns no meaning to the word “vegetable.” Some folks would have you believe that, by definition, fruits have seeds and veggies do not. They’ll claim that foods like lettuce, turnips, and celery are “vegetables” because they don’t contain seeds and therefore are not fruits. Not true!
Botanically speaking, edibles are always defined by the part of the plant they come from. So, within the science of botany, cabbage and spinach would be classified as leaves. The edible part of celery and rhubarb is defined as the stalks, or stems. Carrots and radishes are a root crop. And so on.
Are you catching on? Basically, it’s a trick question to ask if a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, because the two words don’t exist in the same lexicon. There is no “vegetable” in botany – only fruits, stalks, leaves, roots, and tubers.
In culinary terms, however, I think it’s quite natural to differentiate fruits and vegetables in terms of the sweet and the savory. Who wants a tomato for dessert? In the garden (or the botany lab) a tomato may be a fruit. But in the kitchen, it’s clearly a vegetable.
