This is the second time I have observed Stardew Valley tomatoes inspiring such passion. One time in my game I walked inside with a fresh harvest of tomatoes to put in my fridge. As my in-game husband Elliott was standing next to the fridge watching me I decided to talk to him and he said: "Your feminine allure is irresistible today. I can't keep my eyes off you." I have no idea why Stardew Valley tomatoes provoke such overwhelming, heated emotions in the hearts of men, but I can't deny they do.
In my country since the beginning of time Tomato was a vegetable, no one ever questioned it. Even the Hungarian Wikipedia says that it is obviously a vegetable. The thing is, that being vegetable or fruit is a classification given by agriculture in which Tomato is a vegetable because it is planted, harvested, behaves and tastes like other vegetables. This classification was given by the people who where making a living as farmers in the old times. The problem is that some scientists, who basically have no right to reclassify something that which they didn't even classify themselves, say that Tomatoes core structure is more similar to fruits than to other vegetables, and because of this they reclassified it as a fruit in some places in the world. Even though what they say may be right about the structure, this information has nothing to do with being fruit or vegetable. The thing is that Paprika (a type of pepper) has almost same structure as Tomato, but it is classified as a vegetable everywhere. So basically the scientific classification is a useless piece of dirt.
Well, with a name meaning "a bottle" in Hungarian, I had to wonder when paprika would enter the conversation about veggies...! Just kidding. And in any case, my wife and I are crazy about the stuff; use it to make our own version of Szeged fish stew. Well, we like paprika, but also palinka, and real etno-folk music. To be fair, my wife thinks palinka is paint varnish, and doesn't believe that it really is made from different fruits because of the very high alcohol content. I tell her that after a glass or two, I can imagine any fruit flavor I want.
my boyfriend i have legitly quarrelled over this like demetrius and robin did... "TOMATO IS A FRUITTTTTT!" "NO!! IT'S NOT SWEET IT'S A VEGETABLE!" "OK FINE! DON'T TALK TO ME! *angry*"
And I'm just here "Tomatoes are both fruits and veggies" Yes, scientifically tomatoes are fruits and yes, tomatoes are veggies when used in cooking. WHY YOU MAKE ME PICK A SIDE, game! Also saying tomoatoes are veggies just because farmers from before science said so, is like saying bats are birds because people from before science said so because "hey wings". People are wrong sometimes and things aren't always what they appear to be.
All that means is that, in Hungary, people care more about classifying ingredients by their culinary use rather than their scientific classification... and there's nothing wrong with that. I honestly don't see what the big deal is. According to etymonline.com, the modern sense of "fruit" dates back to the 13th century (the 1400s) while, according to Wikipedia, Tomatoes weren't brought back from the Americas until, at the absolute earliest, 1493, but more likely 1521 or later. I could just as easily argue that farmers had no right to classify them because they weren't native to Europe. Paprika is made from chili peppers. Chili peppers are peppers. As with cucumbers, everyone understands that peppers are fruit (swolen plant ovaries meant to be consumed by animals as part of dispersing the seeds contained within) and vegetables (a specific culinary group of ingredients that go well together, like lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes). Again, I really don't understand why people are so determined to argue about tomatoes when other plants make it clear they have no problem recognizing that there are two different classification systems which share the same words.
I meant this paprika for which I couldn't find an english word. My family has planted tomatoes almost every summer and I was shocked to see that the English wikipedia states it as fruit, while the Hungarian one says its obviously a vegetable. But yeah, probably a completely different classification which uses the same words which is a giant failure for humankind, as it creates the most massive confusion in history since religion.
I think the real issue is being overlooked in this debate. It is not whether tomatoes are a fruit or a vegetable; that is just a smoke-screen to conceal the /real/ conflict, the wedge issue that will split our community in twain and drive one another to sharpen knives and snarl at each other's throats: Do you pronounce it 'tow-may-toe' or 'tow-mah-toe'? Let slip the dogs of war.
I say toe-may-toe, but I'd be willing to change for a more consistent language. However, Received Pronounciation (RP) English is the pronunciation system I respect most and I think it also says toe-may-toe because, as I remember, one of the rules is something like "vowels terminating syllables say their own name". (Not that it's perfect. I strongly disagree with non-rhotic accents because they make the letter "r" less useful and require disambiguating pairs like farther and father by context.)
