On a recent edition of Tenable, the question was the first ten grow-your-own fruits alphabetically, on some website. The contestant tried to be too clever by naming cucumber, on the grounds that it is actually a fruit, but this was not tenable. Dunno why she didn't give more obvious answers like blackberry or blackcurrant!
In my science lessons at school, I learned that fruits have their seeds "inside them", vegetables don't; so, accordingly, cucumber is definitely a fruit.
I can imagine cherry tomatoes being rather interesting in a fruit salad. And I've definitely eaten melon which has tasted disconcertingly like cucumber; I suspect we're just conditioned to equate "fruit" with "sweet".
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
When I did my RHS course some 20 years ago. I'm sure they said that if the seeds were inside the 'fruits' it was a fruit, outside it was a vegetable. A long time ago so I can't be sure.
@mollis I'm surprised that the RHS would use the word "vegetable" to describe a plant, since this term belongs in the vocabulary of food & cooking, not to the botanical vocabulary.
Very cucumbery smell quite off putting, just heard radio two Steve Wright show where one of his "factoids" was "Strawberries are the only fruit that carry their seeds on the outside", don't ask me it's what he said!
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