Tomatoes

My tomato plants are beginning to bloom, and I was glad to discover that even the Supreme Court has considered tomatoes - for financial reasons to be sure, but at least they were thinking about tomatoes! 

And, yes, the Supreme Court is my favorite branch of government - not that I would have appointed or approved all of the guys currently serving, but the women - yes! Of course, we probably have no clue what the current court thinks about tomatoes if it thinks of them at all . . . but in the in 1893 it was a different court.

Copying from The Writer's Almanac :  It was on this day in 1893 that the Supreme Court ruled that the tomato was a vegetable, not a fruit. The Tariff Act of 1883 said that a 10 percent tax had to be paid on all imported vegetables. The importers argued that according to the dictionary definition of fruit — the structure that grows from the flower of the plant and holds the seeds — a tomato was a fruit. The government read the definitions of "eggplant," "squash," "pepper," and "cucumber" — all of which, like tomato, are fruits in the botanical sense — but which are considered vegetables. Justice Gray delivered the opinion of the Court: "Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, but in the common language of the people, they are vegetables which are usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert."

The problem is that "vegetable" has no actual scientific or botanical definition — it is a culinary term.

Wonder who exactly made this vegetable decision? Here you go -  Justices of the Supreme Court in 1893