"Dwight Sipler" wrote ...
New England, zone 5.5:

Correction: I read somewhere that a Tomato is not a fruit, but a
vegetable,
by act of Congress. (something to do with tariffs on imports).

That depends if you're a botanist or a bureaucrat. ;-)

From the Brooklyn Botanic Garden site:
"If the controversy over the tomato being toxic or benign weren't enough, an
additional debate has centered over whether the tomato is a vegetable or a
fruit. In 1887, the question went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in
Nix v. Hedden. The real issue was money and protection for American growers:
if tomatoes were vegetables, they could be taxed when imported under the
Tariff Act of 1883. The Court's botanical knowledge was sound-tomatoes are
specialized reproductive structures that contain seeds, in other words,
fruits-but it chose utility over botanical technicalities and ruled on the
side of American farmers:

Botanically speaking tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are
cucumbers, squashes, beans and peas. But in the common language of the
people...all these are vegetables, which are grown in kitchen gardens, and
....are usually served at dinner in, with or after the soup, fish or
meats...and not, like fruits generally, as dessert.
John Nix, the New York tomato importer, had to pay. The Court's pragmatism
was echoed in 1981, when the director of USDA's Division of Food and
Nutrition Service officially declared that ketchup was a vegetable as part
of the Reagan Administration's effort to justify cuts in the school-lunch
program."