is a cucumber a fruit?

I won't editorialize. I have asked the question. Feel free.

Originally posted by FMF
I won't editorialize. I have asked the question. Feel free.

A cucumber is a fruit masquerading as a vegetable.

Originally posted by HandyAndy
A cucumber is a fruit masquerading as a vegetable.

So there is ~ in your view ~ willful pretense on the part of the Cucumber?

Of course cucmber (Cucumis sativus) is a plant. The plant has a fruit containg its seeds. This fruit is commonly counted as vegetable for culinaric purposes.

If the definition of a fruit is that it contains seeds, there are a few of these "vegetables" - eggplant, capsicum, tomato as well as cucumber. What about pumpkin?

Originally posted by Kewpie
If the definition of a fruit is that it contains seeds, there are a few of these "vegetables" - eggplant, capsicum, tomato as well as cucumber. What about pumpkin?

Vegetable is an agrarian term.
Fruits is both an agrarian and a bilogical term.
From a biologicla point of view the fruit of a plant is where the seed is.

Pumpkin has been counted as vegetable or fuit (in agrarian terms) in the former GDR whatever helped to fulfill the plan.
The agraian defintion os fruit and vegetable is vague at least.
I have heard:
vegetable has to be cooked - cucmber, peppers and tomatoes are eaten routinely raw.
friut is sweet - quince is not tasting sweet at all as are a lot of kinds of pears.
fruit is coloured - eggplant, tomato, peppers...

And almonds and walnuts are not nuts.

Whereas FMF is. ;-)

Originally posted by wolfgang59
And almonds and walnuts are not nuts.

Whereas FMF is. ;-)

Nuts and bolts!

Come on people, let's try not to be too cut and dried about it.

Originally posted by FMF
Come on people, let's try not to be too cut and dried about it.

Doesn't matter what you call it - if you can eat it, it's food.

It looks like mutton dressed as lamb when it's hanging out in a bowl with a few flamboyantly coloured peaches, strawberries and tangerines.

Here in Indonesia (at least where I am) cucumber plants grow like bindweed, and the cucumbers are about an inch long. one can pluck them off the plant and eat them whole; very nice if you like cucumbers. Probably this is how they started out before being hybridized into the monster cucumbers one encounters in Sainsburys. This information comes free of charge and is quite useless, and is also quite irrelevant to the main theme of this thread. It therefore does not beg response. (Unless anybody feels like responding).

Originally posted by Indonesia Phil
Here in Indonesia (at least where I am) cucumber plants grow like bindweed, and the cucumbers are about an inch long. one can pluck them off the plant and eat them whole; very nice if you like cucumbers. Probably this is how they started out before being hybridized into the monster cucumbers one encounters in Sainsburys. This information comes free of ...[text shortened]... heme of this thread. It therefore does not beg response. (Unless anybody feels like responding).

Yes. Yes. Yes. But is it a fruit? Come ON. 😠

Originally posted by FMF
Yes. Yes. Yes. But is it a fruit? Come ON. 😠

Trick of the trade. If you can't eat it with cream, then it's not a fruit.

Originally posted by FMF
Yes. Yes. Yes. But is it a fruit? Come ON. 😠

Cleverness is knowing its a fruit.
Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.