We’ve variously referred to tomatoes as a fruit and a vegetable. Which is it? Tomotoes have seeds surrounded by edible flesh, therefore they are a fruit, but you won’t find it in any fruit cookbook; no, it’s there between sweet potato and turnip in the vegetable books.
In the US, the Supreme Court has laid down that tomato is a vegetable not a fruit. The matter came to the court’s attention when in the early 1890s, a West Indian importer insisted his tomatoes were a fruit. Botanically true as is, his reason for saying so was to avoid paying a 10% tariff on imported vegetables.
The customs department took him to court and eventually it was decreed that like potatoes, carrots, parsnips tomatoes were “usually served at dinner in or after the soup, fish, or meat . . . the principal part of the repast, and not like fruit generally, as dessert†and therefore they would be taxed as vegetables along with those other fruits of the vine – cucumbers, squash, beans and peas.
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