By Mike Isbell
University of Georgia
Volume XXVIII
|
Sometimes I have to go digging through the books on my
bookcase to prove things
to people. Such was the case when my friend Willie dropped by
to see me.
The big question
“Mike, when I have a question about something, you’re very
good at helping
me come up with the answer,” he said. “I got to arguing with a
fellow about
a tomato. He says he learned in school that a tomato is a
fruit, and I told
him it’s not — it’s a vegetable.”
“Well, Willie,” I said, “I’m afraid he’s right — it is a
fruit.”
“Now, I always believe what you tell me,” Willie said. “But
you’re wrong this
time.”
“Let’s see what old Webster says,” I said as I pulled my
dictionary off the
bookshelf. But the dictionary definition didn’t do anything
but confuse me and
Willie both.
So I pulled my “Georgia Master Gardener Handbook” off the
shelf and looked
up “fruit.” That was a mistake, too. The fruits it mentioned
were the ones Willie
expected: apples, peaches, plums, grapes, blueberries —
everything but tomatoes.
I was losing Willie’s confidence in me really fast.
Finally, I saw “The Wise Garden Encyclopedia” among the
scores of books on
the shelves. And I looked up “fruit” in it.
And this is what it said: “Botanically and strictly, fruit is
the ripened ovary
of a flower, including its contents and any closely adhering
parts. Examples
are cucumber, pepper, tomato, apple, plum, raspberry.”
Yes!
A social conundrum
But that wasn’t good enough for Willie. He launched into a
tirade of the problems
you would have if you called a tomato a fruit.
“Now, Mike,” he said, “if you go into a restaurant to get
some tomato soup
and you say, ‘Give me some of that fruit soup,’ they’re going
to tell you, ‘This
isn’t fruit soup — this is tomato soup’ and look at you like
you’re crazy!
“Or, if you’ve got a little child, and he asks you for a
piece of fruit, you’re
going to give him a piece of apple, or a pear, or a grape —
not a piece of
pepper!”
After several minutes, Willie finally said, “Mike, let’s say
you’re standing
in a food buffet line, they’ve got all the meats — the
chicken, pork chops,
meat loaf — they got all that together. And then you get to
the vegetables
— the potatoes, turnip greens, carrots — they got all that
together.
“And then you get to the fruits,” he said. “You ain’t going
to find tomatoes!”
