“Vegetable” is a culinary term. It does not mean “plant”, it is not the opposite of the botanical “fruit”. It means “We use this in culinary traditions similarly to other vegetables”.
Pumpkin, Squash and Mushrooms all fit into soup and not into fruit salads, so they’re all vegetables. Cucumbers are veggies for fitting into actual salads, though they’re only like a few good decades of selective breeding away from being full culinary fruits. These are not exact definitions, but, like most things in life, messy definitions are often the most useful ones.
Since “vegetable” only has a definition as a culinary term, I really don’t get why people get so hung up on it. It’s not like “nut” or “berry”, whose culinary a botanical definitions couldn’t be in more of a disagreement.
Lumidaub@feddit.org 2 days ago
People putting them in salads, for one.
moobythegoldensock@infosec.pub 2 days ago
People putting things into salads need to chill out.
Tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, salt, pepper, bacon, eggs, dressing, croutons, cheese, olives, olive oil, vinegar, peppers, salsa, chicken, steak, tortilla chips, chow mien noodles, etc. are all things one might put in a salad that aren’t vegetables.
qjkxbmwvz@startrek.website 2 days ago
What exactly is a vegetable, by your definition?
As others point out, vegetable is a culinary term; fruit is a botanical and culinary term.
moobythegoldensock@infosec.pub 2 days ago
Any non-fruit part of a plant. I’ll also make exceptions for nonstandard fruits like pods and kernels.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
As the other comment implied, salads are a poor gauge as to whether something is treated as a vegetable.
Better to use a crudité. And button mushrooms (which are the same species as portabello!) belong in a crudité.