LOL no fair Rich since I knew sisnce a kid about the supreme court ruling I know it is a fruit called a veggie and doing Atkins we know Dr A considers it a veggie cause it is on the veggie list.
lol Not harsh Rich. What I meant was....maybe after he saw the bum-shot he wouldn't mind seeing it without the shorts. Of course, I am probably digging myself into a big hole here, so I'll just drop it.
In 1893 , the Supreme Court ruled that the tomato must be considered a vegetable, even though, botanically, it is a fruit. Because vegetables and fruits were subject to different import duties, it was necessary to define it as one or the other. So, tomatoes were declared to be a vegetable given that it was commonly eaten as one. (Source: The Packer, 6/9/90)
In some parts of the US South, there are recipes that use a tomato more like a fruit than a vegetable. Off the top of my head, I can think of two: green tomato mincemeat and green tomato pie. The green tomato I'm talking about is the unripe tomato.
Botanically speaking a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, i.e. a fruit. However, from a culinary perspective the tomato is typically served as a meal, or part of a main course of a meal, meaning that it would be considered a vegetable (a culinary term which has no botanical meaning). This argument has led to actual legal implications in the United States. In 1887, U.S. tariff laws which imposed a duty on vegetables but not on fruits caused the tomato's status to become a matter of legal importance. The U.S. Supreme Court settled this controversy in 1893, declaring that the tomato is a vegetable, along with cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas, using the popular definition which classifies vegetables by use, that they are generally served with dinner and not dessert. The case is known as Nix v. Hedden.
In concordance with this classification, the tomato has been proposed as the state vegetable of New Jersey.
In Europe, however, the tomato is classifed (correctly, botanically speaking) as a fruit.
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