<A HREF="http://www.ec88.info">英語クラブEC88</A>の中のあるグループでトマトはフルーツなのか野菜なのかが話題になったと聞きました。 フルーツと言うと木になる果物のイメージが直ぐに浮かび、トマトはやはり野菜ではないかと思いましたが、イチゴやスイカは木になるわけではありませんが確かにフルーツですよね。 そこで英語の Fruit と Vegetable の定義が気になり調べて見ました。
まず英英辞書のLongmanでfruit, vegetableとtomatoを見ると：
fruit or fruits: the part of a plant, tree, or bush that contains seeds and is often eaten as food
vegetable; a plant such as a bean, carrot, or potato which is eaten raw or cooked
tomato: a round soft red fruit eaten raw or cooked as a vegetable
とありました。あれあれ、tomatoはfruitともvegetableとも書かれています。
そこでWikipediaを見ると例によって色々書かれていますが主な個所を抜粋すると、fruitについては：
No single terminology really fits the enormous variety that is found among plant fruits.
Botanic fruit and culinary fruit
Many foods are botanically fruit but are treated as vegetables in cooking. These include cucurbits (e.g., squash, pumpkin, and cucumber), tomato, peas, beans, corn, eggplant (aubergine), and sweet pepper, spices, such as allspice and chillies.
なるほど、植物学的な定義と料理で使う場合でどちらかはっきりしないtomatoのような植物があり、英語でも明確な定義はないと考えても良さそうだ。念のためにvegetableの項も見ると：
Vegetable is a culinary term which generally refers to an edible part of a plant. The definition is traditional rather than scientific and is somewhat arbitrary and subjective. All parts of herbaceous plants eaten as food by humans, whole or in part, are normally considered vegetables. Mushrooms, though belonging to the biological kingdom fungi, are also commonly considered vegetables. In general, vegetables are thought of as being savory, and not sweet, although there are many exceptions. Nuts, grains, herbs, spices and culinary fruits (see below) are normally not considered vegetables.
Since “vegetable” is not a botanical term, there is no contradiction in referring to a plant part as a fruit while also being considered a vegetable (see diagram). Given this general rule of thumb, vegetables can also include leaves (lettuce), stems (asparagus), roots (carrots), flowers (broccoli), bulbs (garlic), seeds (peas and beans) and botanical fruits such as cucumbers, squash, pumpkins, and capsicums. Botanically, fruits are reproductive organs (ripened ovaries containing one or many seeds), while vegetables are vegetative organs which sustain the plant.
そもそもvegetableと言うのは料理用語で、普通野菜とされているキュウリやカボチャも植物学的にはfruit云々とあり、おいおい、結局トマトはどっち？ と思ったら、米国でも黄門の印籠がありました。
The merits of the ongoing question, "is it a fruit, or is it a vegetable?", have even found its way before the bench of the United States Supreme Court which ruled unanimously in Nix v. Hedden, 1883, that a tomato is a vegetable for the purposes of 1883 Tariff Act even though botanically, a tomato is a fruit.
と言う訳で、トマトの結論は植物学的にはfruit、料理ではvegetable、法律的にはvegetable。中々世の中複雑ですね。
トータル
