You will be surprised, but cucumbers and tomatoes do not belong to vegetables!
Are you also used to the idea that everything that grows on stems above and below the ground is vegetables, and everything on trees and bushes is fruit? But this is not the case at all and the plant world is more complicated than we think. Cucumbers and tomatoes, which we deal with almost daily, are not at all what they are given to us for. They are positioned everywhere as vegetables, but in fact a cucumber is a fruit, and a tomato is not a vegetable, and not really a fruit!
If you delve into botany, in the lessons of which most of us were frankly bored, you can learn very interesting things. For example, beans, corn, sweet and bitter peppers, peas, eggplants, pumpkin, cucumbers, zucchini are fruits, since they are flowering plants that reproduce by seeds.
Botanical scientists include leafy vegetables, such as lettuce and spinach, root vegetables: potatoes, carrots and beets, stems: ginger and celery, as well as flower buds: broccoli and cauliflower. But still, do not rush to classify tomatoes as fruits, since they are typical berries in their structure.
In the complex language of science, the fruit of a tomato is a multi-star syncarp berry. There are all the signs-a thin skin, juicy flesh and a lot of seeds. The Spaniards, who discovered this plant in South America in the 16th century, called it "pomi del Peru" – "Peruvian apple". Having caught the eyes of the French, it became "poma amoris" – "the apple of love". The Italians gave the name of the berry "pomo d'oro" — "golden apple", which we most often use, however, in our own way.
But the Aztec Indians called the tomato surprisingly accurately - "tomatl", that is, "big berry". So much for the savages-they" beat up " advanced Europeans! Tomato is used most often as a vegetable, but sometimes true gourmets still remember about its true origin and cook jam from it.
In our country, the tomato got to vegetables because of the technological systematics, since the way it is grown is close to vegetables. This is an annual, row crop that develops quickly and quickly pleases the owner with the harvest. In Europe, a tomato is a fruit, since everything that has pulp and seeds inside, and is also used for juice production, belongs to this category there.
Cucumbers, despite the fact that they belong to the pumpkin family, fall into the category of fruits. If you think about it, there is a logic in this, because a cucumber has a peel, pulp and seeds inside, and besides it grows like a vine, entwining objects that it can reach with a stem.
India is considered the birthplace of cucumbers, but this fruit got to Europe much earlier than American tomatoes. Scientists have found that in the south of Europe, in Greece and Italy, this crop has been grown for more than 3,000 years. In France, cucumbers were introduced in the 9th century AD, and in North America they began to grow only in the 16th century.
Summing up, we can say that if the fruit has pulp and seeds, then it is a fruit, and if not, then a vegetable. We are used to simplifying everything and consider everything sweet or sour as fruits, and vegetables – everything more spicy, tough and designed for long-term storage.
But even if you have remained with your opinion and consider cucumbers and tomatoes to be vegetables, do not rush to combine them in one salad – scientists believe that it is unsafe.
Keywords: Nature | Science | Tomatoes | Scientists | Vegetables | Fruits | Cucumbers | Food and drinks