I'm officially calling this post misinformation. See the text of the opinion (emphasis mine). They literally say "Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine". This is not about whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable according to specific botanical or common definitions, but about which definition to use for the purpose of the Tariff Act of 1883. It doesn't say that tomatoes are a vegetable. It doesn't say that botanically they aren't fruits. It says that for the purpose of the Tariff Act of 1883 they are vegetables, not fruits.
Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893)
[...]
MR. JUSTICE GRAY, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
The single question in this case is whether tomatoes, considered as provisions, are to be classed as "vegetables" or as "fruit" within the meaning of the Tariff Act of 1883.
The only witnesses called at the trial testified that neither "vegetables" nor "fruit" had any special meaning in trade or commerce different from that given in the dictionaries, and that they had the same meaning in trade today that they had in March, 1883.
The passages cited from the dictionaries define the word "fruit" as the seed of plaints, or that part of plaints which contains the seed, and especially the juicy, pulpy products of certain plants covering and containing the seed. These definitions have no tendency to show that tomatoes are "fruit," as distinguished from "vegetables" in common speech or within the meaning of the tariff act.
There being no evidence that the words "fruit" and "vegetables" have acquired any special meaning in trade or commerce, they must receive their ordinary meaning. Of that meaning the court is bound to take judicial notice, as it does in regard to all words in our own tongue, and upon such a question dictionaries are admitted not as evidence, but only as aids to the memory and understanding of the court. Brown v. Piper, 91 U. S. 37, 91 U. S. 42; Jones v. United States, 137 U. S. 202, 137 U. S. 216; Nelson v. Cushing, 2 Cush. 519, 532-533; Page v. Fawcet, 1 Leon. 242; Taylor on Evidence (8th ed.), §§ 16, 21.
Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert.
The attempt to class tomatoes as fruit is not unlike a recent attempt to class beans as seeds, of which Mr. Justice Bradley, speaking for this Court, said:
"We do not see why they should be classified as seeds any more than walnuts should be so classified. Both are seeds, in the language of botany or natural history, but not in commerce nor in common parlance. On the other hand, in speaking generally of provisions, beans may well be included under the term 'vegetables.' As an article of food on our tables, whether baked or boiled, or forming the basis of soup, they are used as a vegetable, as well when ripe as when green. This is the principal use to which they are put. Beyond the common knowledge which we have on this subject, very little evidence is necessary or can be produced."
You're right, and I absolutely upvoted this. Can't we just laugh at the funny but slightly inaccurate thing? Quit reminding people that America's courts weren't always such a joke.
What's the truth around Bush I declaring ketchup a vegetable?
Vegetables aren’t actually a thing though. Just a bunch of things we grouped because we like eating them.
Botanically is there such thing as a "vegetable"?
VIC?!
My understanding is that any edible part of a plant is considered vegetable.
"Fruit" within culinary is usually applied to "sweeter" forms of fruits, and the more savory forms usually get called "vegetable" instead regardless of being botanically called fruits or not.
Tomatoes are sweet
Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Court unanimously held that tomatoes should be classified as vegetables rather than fruits for purposes of tariffs, imports and customs. Justice Horace Gray delivered the opinion of the Court in holding that the Tariff Act of 1883 used the ordinary meaning of the words "fruit" and "vegetable", instead of the technical botanical meaning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden
Yeah, I genuinely don't see the problem here. There are much weirder classifications with regards to tariffs. (Note that I haven't been able to fact check this, is could be a popular urban legend.) Converse shoes have a felt lining that makes them considered slippers instead of shoes. The practice is called tariff engineering. (That page lists the Converse thing, so maybe it's actually true.)
My stubborn position is that all fruits are vegetables.
Anything that comes from a plant (vegetation) is a vegetable.
EDIT: Reading up on the case, they apparently didn’t treat fruits and vegetables as disjoint sets but rather with fruits as a subset of vegetables. So far, so good…
HOWEVER, they also apparently ruled that tomatoes don’t count as a fruit because they aren’t eaten for dessert…
Wow… just… wow.
because they aren’t eaten for dessert
This sounds to me like a reasonable way to disqualify something as a culinary fruit.
Folks like to make a big hullabaloo about tomatoes being technically a fruit, but no one gives a second thought about referring to peppers, cucumbers, green beans, eggplant, avocado, pumpkins & other squash, or corn on-the-cob as vegetables even though they are all technically fruit.
And I was being picky there, because beans, peas, grains and nuts are all also technically fruit. Heck, lots of “nuts” like peanuts and cashews aren’t even really nuts.
Keep your taxonomy out of my kitchen:
- Fruit are sweet.
- Vegetables are not.
- Grains make bread.
- Herbs and spices add a lot of flavor with a little bit. Herbs are the green ones.
- nuts are. They just are. Don’t think about it too hard.
I think this is more about which definitions to use for the purpose of tariffs than which definitions these things fall under.
Fruits are edible seed pods. Nuts are inedible seed pods but have edible seeds.
Fruit makes wine.
Grain makes beer
Nuts in the right contexts make nougat, nut paste or babies.
Wait, you've found one! I consider peppers their own thing, culinarily speaking anyway, neither fruit nor vegetable.
The rest of your bullet points I basically agree with, but there's also
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peppers are peppery, not always hot, red bell are sweet, and green bell tastes like feet.
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seeds are seedy, don't think about the difference between them and nuts, some questions are not for mortal man.
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That's not really a stubborn position. That's definitively true.
All fruits are vegetables; not all vegetables are fruit.
Stupid meme. Many other countries also classify tomatoes in with vegetables for various commerce regulation and taxation purposes. That case was just capitalists trying to get out of paying tariffs by nitpicking the definition of a tomato
I hate these things where people twist reality just so they can make a cute "Americans are so dumb" meme. If you want to bash the US, there are plenty of relevant topics to choose from for criticism. Better yet, read a book once in a while instead of just scrolling the internet and grabbing random shit that's gone viral.
And BTW, what's a fruit or vegetable is not some objective Sacred Truth that science "discovered", it's that science came up with a system of categorizing plants that people deemed to be useful for the study of Botany, just as legislators came up with a slightly different classification useful for taxation, and regular people also classify them in a way that's useful for cooking purposes. This is not a situation where Science! is an almighty God. It's just ways of sorting things. "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad."
This made me chuckle more than it should have
And BTW, what’s a fruit or vegetable is not some objective Sacred Truth that science “discovered”, it’s that science came up with a system of categorizing plants that people deemed to be useful for the study of Botany,
It's true that all biological classifications are just operational, they're not some absolute natural truth or a fifth law of thermodynamics. However, the definition of "fruit" is also not some arbitrary malleable classification we randomly attach to plant anatomy based on how it looks. There are biological definitions that are indeed malleable in that way, this one isn't.
Fruits are organs with a specific origin in the plant and with a very specific goal. Tomatoes are fruits, and there's no system of definitions that could group them otherwise that wouldn't either: contain contradictions or wrongful elements or be identical to the current definition of fruit. You could call them "blorgblurgs" but the elements in that group would be the same, because fruits are a specific part of a plant with actual reason behind the definition.
Because Fruits were taxed higher than vegetables, so importers started listing them as a vegetable.
It's tax dodges all the way down.
I just looked it up and it was actually the opposite: vegetables were taxed and fruits were not. Then somebody argued that they shouldn't have to pay and the court decided that yes, botanically speaking tomatoes are fruit, but in their ordinary meaning (which is used in commerce and trade) they are a vegetable. And that a tomato is used and prepared like a vegetable so it should be classified as that.
Just a list of items we normally think of as veggies, but actually fruit: cucumbers, squash, peppers, eggplants, avocados, pumpkins.
The real misconception is that people conflate culinary terms with biological terms.
Are actually fruit
No, they are culinary vegetables. They are also biological fruits. AFAIK "vegetable" does not even have meaning in biology
It doesn't matter why are you roleplaying as a botanist if you don't see that culinary definitions and scientific classification are two separate things. One is really useless for the average person and the other is probably also a foreign concept to everyone having quirky discussions about whether cakes are hotdogs or smoothies, because they are the type of people to tweet a 60 page essay about why expecting neurodivergents people to cook their own meal should be considered a hate crime.
Botanical vs culinary. Different contexts; different definition per context. There is not a problem here.
Plus they make the national drink...ketchup.
So is ketchup technically a jam?
Yes according to the Dutch.
This leaves out the modern extension of this where pizza meets the requirements of a vegetable due to it containing 2 tablespoons of tomato paste as specified in the "Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2012", previously the "Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010".
Thanks Obama
Vegetable isn't even a botanical definition.
Like when the state of Indiana [attempted to change] the definition of pi
Almost changed the definition of pi. It passed the House, but a professor from Purdue happened to be in the Statehouse on unrelated business the day the Senate voted on it. He managed to convince enough Senators that it was a terrible idea and they absolutely roasted it on the floor.
The Wikipedia article on it is great. "Legislative History" is the interesting bit. My favorite part is this:
An assemblyman handed [Prof. Waldo] the bill, offering to introduce him to the genius who wrote it. He declined, saying that he already met as many crazy people as he cared to.
"(...) he already met as many crazy people as he cared to."
My spirit animal.
Very relatable
I cannot heart this enough.
They're also a Native American food that was made famous by Italians, celebrated by the Spanish, honoured by the French, used by the English and turned into Ketchup by the Americans .... another bit of multicultural history of America.
Ketchupbased BBQ sauce*
Ya skipped a level.
What's the deal with the background? Screenshots aren't what they used to be, back in my day the worst that could happen was for the image to turn into a pixelated mess after being re-uploaded 1000 times.
Now I sometimes see images getting tilted by 5%, random words crossed out in yellow, and whatever the fuck happened here.
Idk, I stole the meme from somewhere
Might have been more productive to let them pass it. Lesson learned kinda thing
Watch more reels
Watch again
Watch more reels
It wouldn't be very patriotic of me to be patriotic of a foreign country.
