• @SexyTimeSasquatch@lemmy.world
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    304 months ago

    They’re both. The term vegetable can mean either a part of a plant that people eat, or in a culinary sense it can refer to savory plant based foods that excludes things like grains, legumes, nuts, etc. In either case tomatoes, being both an edible part of a plant and savory gets to be a vegetable.

    On a different level, botanically, not only is it a fruit, but it is a true berry.

    So yeah, it can be, and is both things depending on the how you’re looking at it.

    • YAMAPIKARIYA
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      94 months ago

      I don’t even know what “savory” means. What does that mean. I see it all the time but it means nothing to me.

      • Codex
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        124 months ago

        Savory is the English term for the fifth flavor, often called umami. Savory foods have a distinct flavor different from salt, sour, bitter, and sweet. Sometimes described as “meaty.” Other high umami foods include soy-based foods and mushrooms.

      • @macarthur_park@lemmy.world
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        44 months ago

        One definition: food “belonging to the category that is salty or spicy rather than sweet.”

        It’s a bit of an odd definition but it gets the gist across. An example of using savory: differentiating between pies with savory filling (meats, vegetables, etc) and sweet filling (fruits, custard).

      • candyman337
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        44 months ago

        To add to the other explanations, if you’ve ever had MSG it is literally THE savory flavor distilled. If you’ve ever had Cool ranch Doritos, the aftertaste is kind of savory.

    • Codex
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      34 months ago

      Time to add a longer tail to the right side of the meme with your post on it with the transcendent “nuanced and complete position” wojak.

  • Lvxferre
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    104 months ago

    At those times I’m really glad that Portuguese distinguishes between fruta (culinary fruit) and fruto (botanical fruit; also posh word for yield, output). It means that the underlying false dichotomy doesn’t even work in the language.

  • Neato
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    64 months ago

    Botany: tomatoes are fruits. But apples aren’t!

    Culinary: tomatoes are the key to a BLT.