Quite Interesting Facts About Fruit

It has occurred to me that, if I am not careful, my Challenge posts will simply become a record of my weekly meals.  While I am sure some nutritionist somewhere will be thrilled to read such a detailed journal, and centuries from now historians may hold it up as an exquisite insight into the early 21st century diet, I am quite confidant that my readership (at least those who I want to be reading my blog) are not in the least bit interested.

I am therefore adopting a slightly new approach to my blog and have decided to make sure I apply a liberal helping of anecdote within and as well as my Challenge posts.  Starting with this piece about fruit.

This adapted approach to my blog coincided with an interesting fact that I learned about tomatoes last week.  Couple that with another interesting thing that I know about pineapples and the fact that last week's Challenge recipe involved oranges, fruit was really the obvious choice.

A Quite Interesting Fact About Tomatoes

Ever since my first science project at school on 'botanist fruits' I have been able to declare with confidence that a tomato is a fruit. In overly simplistic terms, this is because tomatoes have seeds, and seeds are what differentiate a fruit from a vegetable.  So are other 'vegetables' like courgettes (zucchinis for my American friends), which wikipedia tells me are "the swollen ovary of the zucchini flower."

I have since discovered, however, that there is another twist in this tale of scientific classification, which is the legal position of the tomato.  (This is where I become particularly pleased with myself because I am meant to be revising for my law exams and I have managed to combine blogging with revision - albeit nothing that I will be examined on.)

In 1893, the United States Supreme Court confirmed, contrary to science, that a tomato was a vegetable (Nix v Hedden).  The reason for the decision centred around the fact that tomatoes are more often used as a main course than a dessert.  Considering we often have fruit in main courses (see my previous post relating to orange-glazed duck breast) and vegetables in our desserts (see Martha Stewart's Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake), the reasoning seems somewhat outdated.

But, as with all things, it came down to money.  The reason why the classification was so important was that, at the time, tax was payable on imported vegetables not fruit.  Very much like the Jaffa Cake saga of 1991 when the Jaffa Cake was classed as a cake and therefore not liable for VAT.  Apparently, the Jaffa cake was assessed on 11 different criteria, including its consistency when stale and its attractiveness to children.

It is comforting to know that my future career and my gastronomic enthusiasm have realms over overlap!

A Quite Interesting Fact About Pineapples

Going back to my original point about identifying fruit from the presence of seeds, it struck me one day that I had never seen a pineapple seed, and I started to panic.  Could it be that the botanists are wrong?  Or is a pineapple in fact a vegetable?

I need not have worried.  Pineapples do, indeed, have seeds.  But we have never seen them because the pineapples with seeds allegedly don't taste as good as the seedless ones.  Much like grapes, I suppose - although seedless grapes are more about convenience than taste.

In carrying out my research I learned that a pineapple is a 'multiple fruit' and is actually a collection of berries.  So each of those wee knobbly bits on a pineapple is an individual piece of fruit.  I also discovered that the scientific word for pineapple, 'ananas', comes from the Tupi word nanas meaning excellent fruit - which is very fitting, and I think quite interesting!

And there we have it.  2 quite interesting facts about fruit.