A Fruit or Not a Fruit? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Yes

Tomatoes are fruit, as they are essentially the ovary and seeds of a flowering plant. They are not as sweet as many other fruits, however, and in the culinary world they are treated as vegetables, frequently served as a savory dish in itself or as a savory ingredient in other dishes. Most weight-loss programs (Weight Watchers, Richard Simmons, etc.) of the 1970s through the 2000s regarded tomatoes as vegetables for the purposes of their eating plans. New Jersey has made the tomato its state vegetable, whereas Arkansas decided to have it both ways and made the tomato both the state fruit and the state vegetable!

Answer: Yes

Yes, coconuts are indeed fruit. In fact, they are a particular kind of fruit, known as a drupe, which means they have a pit or stone, like a peach pit, inside of which is a seed or kernel. Peaches, nectarines, and cherries are also drupes.

Coconut is one of the most versatile fruits known to man. The milk and oil of coconut are used in cooking, and coconut oil is a common ingredient is cosmetics as well. In many countries, coconut water is a popular beverage, and in the Caribbean especially, folks sing traditional songs in praise of this refreshing drink.

Answer: Yes

Generally speaking, rhubarb is a vegetable -- simply a part of a plant grown for food, in particular the stalk. It grows from a thick rhizome and its fleshy stalks, or petioles, resemble red celery. In 1947, however, the U.S. Customs Court in Buffalo, NY ruled that rhubarb was a fruit. The rhubarb importers were pleased because tariffs on fruit are lower than than those on vegetables.

The stalks are used in baking pies, but never the leaves, which are highly toxic as they contain corrosive oxalic acid, the main ingredient in powder cleansers like Bar Keeper's Friend and Zud. (Oxalic acid is also found in other leafy greens like spinach, but in far smaller quantities).

Answer: a botanical fruit but a culinary vegetable

Eggplant or aubergine is indeed a fruit, in particular a berry with numerous small seeds. (But it is regarded in common culinary usage as a vegetable.)
It is a nightshade, which means it is closely related to potatoes and tobacco!

Ratatouille can be served as a side dish or a main dish, especially with pasta. In making ratatouille, "The Joy of Cooking" suggests that I salt, rinse, and drain the eggplant first to remove excess moisture. I often ignore that, however, when I am making ratatouille to eat with spaghetti or vermicelli, because I find the additional moisture makes it "saucier".

Answer: a botanical fruit but a culinary vegetable

Zucchini is yet another culinary vegetable which is botanically a fruit! Also known as courgette, it is a green summer squash which can grow as much as a yard (about a meter) long. Zucchini is delicious sautéed, broiled, steamed, stuffed, baked, or grilled. You can use it to make a soufflé, a quickbread, or a savory soup. Because it is so low in calories, dieticians and weight-loss gurus tend to count it as a vegetable, but it is in fact the ovaries and seeds of the zucchini flower, hence a fruit!

Answer: Yes

Bell peppers of any color -- green, red, yellow, or orange -- are all fruit! Green peppers are far less sweet and nutritious than red peppers, but they are all in fact the same species. Red hot chili peppers are also in the same species, but the bell pepper cultivars lack the capsaicin of other peppers, so they are not hot. In fact, in North America they are often called sweet peppers, especially the red, yellow, and orange peppers.

To make ratatouille, "The Joy of Cooking" instructs me to sautée all my culinary vegetables together. Julia Child, however, preferred to layer the culinary vegetables into a casserole and bake in a oven. Interestingly, all the main culinary vegetables used in ratatouille -- eggplant (aubergine), zucchini (courgette), tomatoes, and bell peppers -- are all botanical fruits!

Answer: snow peas

The florets (buds) of the broccoli, the leaves of the spinach, and the roots of the carrot are all just parts of a plant eaten for food, and they are vegetables. The tender pods of snow peas, however, are botanical fruits even though we use them in cooking as vegetables because they contain seeds developed from a flower's ovary!

Be sure to use a good-quality sesame oil in your stir-fry! (But don't let it smoke.) For extra health benefits, serve with brown rice rather than white rice, or with whole-grain noodles.

Answer: cucumbers

Cucumbers are not very sweet at all, and they are perceived as vegetables, but they are in fact a fruit! (They are just the cylindrical ovaries of the cucumber flower.) The cucumber originally came from Nepal, and it was a popular food of ancient Ur, the home of Abraham.

The radish is a root vegetable, like parsnips and carrots. We simply eat the celery stalks, so that's a vegetable too. And we don't eat the fruit of the lettuce plant, just the leaves. In the early part of the 21st century, China was the top producer of cucumbers, followed distantly by Iran.

Answer: No

The little dark green things called capers that we eat are the flower buds of the caper bush, or Flinders rose. So like broccoli and cauliflower, they are not fruit! They are picked and then dried in the sun and then packed in salt or soaked in brine. Capers are delightfully pungent and are often used in sauces. Chicken picatta is a fairly common dish that uses capers.

Sometimes young caper berries, which are fruit, are referred to as capers, but this is not really correct. Merriam-Webster, for example, defines caper as either the bud or the berry, but most culinary sources I consulted make a distinction.

Answer: pea pods

Pineapple, strawberry, and figs are actually accessory fruits or pseudocarps (literally, false fruit) because they contain not only ovarian tissue but also significant non-ovarian tissue. In the culinary world, however, nobody cares about the plants' ovaries; they just care about sweetness and texture, so these foods are fruits! And most botanists will just call them fruits, too, come to that, without making the finer distinction.

Pea pods and tomatoes, in contrast, contain only ripened ovaries, so they are true fruits, even though in the culinary world they are regarded as vegetables!