Tomatoes: the debate rages on

I've heard many different arguments on the topic of whether tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable, but today I decided to see if I could find a definitive answer. It seems that botanically, they are fruits, specifically berries, which blew my mind. However, they are also made into sauce and served on pasta, and I have never heard of a pasta served with fruit sauce. Though, now that I mention it, that might be delicious. Maybe I should pioneer a line of dessert pastas... Raspberry cannoli? Chocolate caramel lasagna? Could be delicious.

The definition for vegetable seems largely culinary. Some definitions call vegetables any edible plant or plant part, which would mean that fruits are a subset of vegetables. However, some other definitions specify that vegetables are any edible plant or plant part that is not a fruit. Therefore, if all fruits are vegetables, and to be a vegetable, you must NOT be a fruit, fruit does not exist.

We are no closer to an answer.

Luckily, in 1883, the Supreme Court of the United States of America stepped in to end the chaos once and for all, and legally declared tomatoes to be vegetables. This is a US-specific law, though, so if you're eating an American tomato, you're most definitely eating a vegetable. However, if that tomato happens to be Mexican, it could well be a fruit. Barring a UN-backed global tomato standardization effort, the debate may never be settled.

Some more interesting tomato trivia:

-The tomato's latin name, Solanum lycopersicum, means "wolf-peach". So next time you're ordering some spaghetti, don't forget the wolf-peach berry sauce.

-"Tomato" was popular slang for an attractive woman in the United States from the 1920's to the 1940's.

-Tomatoes used to be considered poisonous due to their botanical relation to the "nightshade" family of plants, many of which are indeed poisonous.

-According to American legend, the tomato's poisonous reputation led a British national to attempt the assassination of George Washington by serving him a dish laced with tomatoes. Sinister!