Tomatoes are a fruit. No, they’re a vegetable. No wait—they’re a fruit.
The truth: they’re both. The two groups are not mutually exclusive. But if you’re the American legal system, well, only one of the two definitions matters.
Fruits, botanically speaking, are the seed-containing ovaries of a flowering plant—and yes, this definition includes the tomato, as well as cucumbers, which are also often referred to as a vegetable.
This is because the term “vegetable” lacks scientific meaning and instead is defined loosely by the culture of food. When and how a specific food is served determines how the food is categorized. For example, plants that are most commonly used in soups, salads, or as side dishes to a main course are typically considered vegetables. This includes tomatoes and cucumbers, as well as sweet corn (a grain whose kernels are the fruit) and mushrooms (which is a fungus, not a plant). So while the term “vegetable” generally refers to the edible parts of plants other than the fruit or seeds, that distinction is imprecise and incomplete.
Tomatoes, therefore, are both fruits and veggies, and if you ask linguistic experts (and many dictionaries), you’ll find them generally in agreement over the matter.
Much ado about nothing? Perhaps, but the U.S. Supreme Court found the issue important enough to address. In 1883, the U.S. government passed a tariff act, requiring that importers of vegetables pay a tax—a tax that did not apply to the importation of fruits. Ten years later, in Nix v. Hedden, a group of tomato importers filed suit against the government. The importers hoped to recover taxes already paid by arguing that botanically, tomatoes were a fruit and therefore not subject to the tariff. In a unanimous decision, the Court held in favor of the government. Noting that tomatoes were used typically with main courses and not as desserts, the Court concluded that tomatoes were subject to the import tax.
At the state level, three states—Arkansas, Ohio, and Tennessee—call the tomato the state fruit. (In Arkansas, it is actually the official fruit/vegetable.) However, this is not unanimous: In 2005, New Jersey relied on the reasoning in Nix when it considered making the tomato its official vegetable of the state.
In 2000, police in Blacksburg, Virginia, kept receiving 911 calls from the home of local residents Daniel and Linda Hurst—but when the emergency operator spoke, no one on the Hursts’ end spoke. After determining that the Hursts were not home, the police decided to raid the home, guns drawn, to search for potential hostages or malfeasants. They found neither. Instead, they found an overripe tomato, dripping its juice onto an answering machine. This caused the answering machine to short circuit and, for some reason, repeatedly dial 911. Apparently, tomatoes are fruits, vegetables, and, in the right context, prank callers.