Feb 24 2004
An eggplant is a fruit
Interesting essay about fruit and vegetables, how they’re named, and what they’re made of.
The first thing I’ll clear up is that ‘vegetable’ is pretty much meaningless: it’s not the opposite of fruit [...], and it’s not the opposite of plants you eat for pudding (carrot cake, courgette cake, rocket and raspberry salad, etc.), and it’s not savoury plant products either (sweetcorn, anybody?). Vegetable doesn’t really seem to mean anything, so unfortunately, we will have to leave the cosy world of fruit and vegetables, and get our heads round some nasty botanical concepts, like the difference between a leaf and a flower, and some even nastier words.
(via Bifurcated Rivets)
