We group the foods we obtain from plants
into several loose categories.
Fruit and Vegetable Apart from such plant
seeds as wheat and rice, which are described
in chapter 9, the most prominent plant foods
in our diet are fruits and vegetables. Vegetable
took on its current sense just a few centuries
ago, and essentially means a plant material
that is neither fruit nor seed. So what is a
fruit? The word has both a technical and a
common meaning. Beginning in the 17th
century, botanists defined it as the organ that
develops from the flower’s ovary and
surrounds the plant’s seeds. But in common
usage, seed-surrounding green beans,
eggplants, cucumbers, and corn kernels are
called vegetables, not fruits. Even the United
States Supreme Court has preferred the cook’s
definition over the botanist’s. In the 1890s, a
New York food importer claimed duty-free
status for a shipment of tomatoes, arguing that