Mel Turner replied to Jeff Root:

What distinguishes fruits which taste fruity from those which
do not? For example, apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries,
and grapes usually taste fruity when ripe, while bell peppers,
tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, olives, and squash generally do not.

But those things that "do not" really don't always taste like one
another either,

Of course. Even if the textures were anything alike, I
wouldn't mistake the flavor of tomato for the flavor of squash.
But I fail to get your point.

and your "fruity" fruits seem to have a lot of different
distinctive tastes

Yes, certainly. I think all of these flavors and hundreds of
others are available in artificial form, for flavoring candy
or pudding or you-name-it. I can usually identify the fruit
without being told what it is supposed to be.

and may share little other than sugary sweetness.

I don't believe that for a second. Sucrose doesn't taste
fruity. (Does fructose??? If it does, I haven't noticed.)
Peppermint candy doesn't taste fruity. Wintergreen candy
doesn't taste fruity. Mints seem not to be a fruity group
of flavors, though they come close. Sweetened chocolate
doesn't taste fruity. Egg custard doesn't taste fruity.
Glazed carrots don't taste fruity.

I'd better repeat that when I say "taste", I may really mean
"smell". I don't know enough about the the physiology of taste
and smell to say where one leaves off and the other begins.

There are edible fruits that are pretty different from the
sweet juicy flesh of the "fruity" fruits you have in mind
[e.g., avocados, plantains, eggplant]

Yes, of course. They go in the second list, with bell peppers,
tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, olives, and squash, which generally
do not taste fruity. Why don't they?

(When anyone other than a botanist mentions "fruit", what is
meant is almost always a member of the first group, and not
the second.)

Could you give me examples of:

Parts of plants which taste fruity, but are not fruits.
(The only example I can think of is rhubarb.)

Many "fruits" are actually not strict botanical fruits [= the
further developed and ripened products of the ovaries of
flowering plants]. The small "seeds" on a strawberry are the true
fruits [achenes] of the plant; the fleshy red stuff is part of the
receptacle of the flower. A rose hip similarly isn't a fruit, but
the hard seedlike structures on the inside are the true fruits.

A fig also isn't a true fruit, but is a hollow fleshy inflorescence
[flowering stalk] with the many small seedlike true fruits from
many separate small flowers on the inside. There are also fleshy
"fruits" derived from flower stalks [cashew apples _Anacardium_];
fruits where the fleshy bits are the sepals of the flower, not
the ovaries; fruits where all the fleshy edible stuff is from
special structures [arils] attached to the seeds, and not part
of the ovary wall. Etc.

I'm not a botanist, and don't expect to play one on TV. My use
of the term "fruit" is based on the functions and qualities of
the plant part. The two relevant functions that I'm aware of
are that the fruit provides nourishment for the seed after it
germinates, and that it is attractive to animals, so that the
animals will distribute the seed for the plant. Both functions
are accomplished in part by having nutritive stuff in the fruit.
The second function is accomplished in part by having a fruity
smell and taste which attracts certain animals. (Cats will
never distribute orange seeds, I think.) The evolutionary
development of the plant structures that you refer to is
important in its own right, but I don't think is useful in
defining whether a part of a plant is a fruit or not.

Fruits which taste fruity but are not cultivated for food.
(And maybe some indication of *why* they aren't.)

Most plants with fleshy edible fruits aren't cultivated. Many
may potentially be suitable for such use, but haven't been
adopted and selected for use by human growers. Why? Because
very few people seem dedicated to trying to domesticate entirely
new crops from wild plants?

Perhaps, but as I said to "PvR", I think that anything that
can be done that has a money-making potential will be tried.
If somebody eats a plant out of desperation or curiosity and
finds it to be halfway interesting, they will try to make some
money by growing and selling it.

Fruits which do not taste fruity and are not cultivated for
food. (And again some indication of why they aren't.)

Why just this combination of traits? There are non-"fruity"
fruits that are still cultivated for food. And even some food
plants that aren't cultivated.

Brevity. I didn't want to ask you questions that I already
have adequate answers to. I've answered the easy questions,
now I'm asking for help with the harder ones.

Ultimately I'd like to have several widely-familiar examples
of each.

Is this perhaps for a class assignment?

No, but I realized before I posted it that it sure does read
that way. :-)

If so, perhaps it would
be better to help you learn to find your own examples.

Even if not. But some ways of doing things are easier than
others. I'm lazy and fairly smart and I try to ask for help
when I need it to get the project done, even if it is my own
project and there is no deadline.

For example, try

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

and try putting varying combinations of key words such as
"fruits", "domestication", "receptacle", "ovary", "flower"
into the "with all of the words" box.

Now, why should I use the terms "receptacle" or "flower"?
Those are certainly terms I never would have thought of myself.

Here's a page no search engine will find. It's the reason for
my questions. I'm working on the auxillary info at the bottom
of the page. It may also be necessary to add something about
seedless fruit, somewhere. I'm giving you a sneak preview of
my nearly-but-not-quite finished page... The Tomato Question.

http://www.freemars.org/jeff2/tomato/

This page will be removed after I've finished it and added it
to my main site (http://www.freemars.org/jroot/), hopefully
real soon now.

I haven't been able to find much info about the taste
of parts of plants not normally eaten. :-)

Experimenting yourself on some species may be ill-advised.

I figure other people have already tried *everything*, so I
might as well ask here to find out what they learned.

-- Jeff, in Minneapolis

Subtract 1 from my e-mail address above for my real address.
..