What's the Difference Between a Fruit and a Vegetable?
Dad I got on to this topic on Easter, which was also the day before his 71st birthday. Some online research yielded these results:
What's the Difference Between a Fruit and a Vegetable? Great question, often asked. Short answer: a fruit has seeds. A vegetable is more like a root, a bulb, leaves, something like that. We all know, that scientifically tomatoes are fruits. Same with cucumbers, squashes and zucchini, avocados, green, red, and yellow peppers, peapods, and pumpkins. But grocers put sweet ones with fruit and less sweet ones are lumped in with vegetables.
Most fruits are sweet because they contain the simple sugar, fructose; while most vegetables are less sweet because they have much less fructose. The sweetness of fruit encourages animals to eat it and thereby spread the seeds (via their shit, or as children say, poo, or as Christian Fundamentalists afraid of words say -- well, they actually just allude to it by making facial gestures, rolling their eyes, etc).
What about the nut? A nut is actually a dry, one-seeded, usually oily fruit. From somewhere: "True nuts include the acorn, chestnut, and hazelnut. The term nut also refers to any seed or fruit with a hard, brittle covering around an edible kernel, like the peanut, which is really a legume. A legume is defined as (the) name for any plant of the pulse family; more generally, any vegetable. Botanically, a legume -- a pod that splits along two sides, with the seeds attached to one of the sutures--is the characteristic fruit of the pulse family." Meanwhile, a "pulse" is "the common name for Leguminosae or Fabaceae, a large family of herbs, shrubs, and trees, also called the pea, or legume, family."
A fruit is the matured ovary of a flower, containing the seed. After fertilization takes place and the embryo (plantlet) has begun to develop, the surrounding ovule becomes the fruit. That kind of talk tends to make religious nuts (the ones who currently run the country via the likes of Bush, Santorum, Frist, etc) nervous, pious and angry.
A grain is described as the dry fruit of a cereal grass, such as the "seedlike fruits of the buckwheat and other plants, and the plants bearing such fruits." So, grain is also a fruit.
Meanwhile, the California legislature once passed a law declaring tomatoes a vegetable in order to impose a tariff on Mexican imports. And in 1893 the US Supreme Court got their hands into it as well. From The Christian Science Monitor staff writer, Owen Thomas:
"A passing reference in last week's photo quiz noted that in 1893 the United States Supreme Court declared the tomato a vegetable. To botanists, the tomato always has been, and ever will be, a fruit. (See "Solve This UFO Mystery - Unidentified Fruity Objects," Jan. 27) The idea of the Supreme Court deciding such a matter sounded too much like a scene from "Alice in Wonderland" to one reader: Debra Jones of Boston decided to research it. Ms. Jones located a record of the arguments in the case of Nix v. Hedden. John Nix was a fruit importer (or so he thought). He sued New York customs collector Edward Hedden to recover duties "paid under protest" on the import of tomatoes from the West Indies. At the time, vegetables required a 10 percent tariff. Fruits were imported duty-free. We thought you might enjoy imagining the scene at the court as the issue was argued, based on these excerpts from the court record: "At the trial the plaintiff's counsel, after reading in evidence definitions of the words 'fruit' and 'vegetables' from Webster's Dictionary, Worcester's Dictionary, and the Imperial Dictionary, called two witnesses, who had been for 30 years in the business of selling fruit and vegetables.... "The plaintiff's counsel then read in evidence from the same dictionaries the definitions of the word 'tomato.' The defendant's counsel then read in evidence from Webster's Dictionary the definitions of the words 'pea,' 'egg plant,' 'cucumber,' 'squash,' and 'pepper.' "The plaintiff then read in evidence from Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries the definitions of 'potato,' 'turnip,' 'parsnip,' 'cauliflower,' 'cabbage,' 'carrot,' and 'bean.' "No other evidence was offered....
"Mr. Justice Gray ... delivered the opinion of the court: 'The single question in this case is whether tomatoes, considered as provisions, are to be classed as "vegetables" or as "fruit".... " 'The only witnesses called at the trial testified that neither "vegetables" nor "fruit" had any special meaning in trade or commerce different from that given in the dictionaries, and that they had the same meaning in trade today that they had in March 1883. " 'The passages cited from the dictionaries define the word "fruit" as the seed of plants, or that part of plants which contains the seed, and especially the juicy, pulpy products of certain plants, covering and containing the seed. These definitions have no tendency to show that tomatoes are "fruit," as distinguished from "vegetables," in common speech, or within the meaning of the tariff act.... " 'Botanically speaking, tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans, and peas. But in the common language of the people, whether sellers or consumers of provisions, all these are vegetables which are grown in kitchen gardens, and which, whether eaten cooked or raw, are, like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, celery, and lettuce, usually served at dinner in, with, or after the soup, fish, or meats which constitute the principal part of the repast, and not, like fruits generally, as dessert." Nix lost. Tomatoes are vegetables because they are cooked and served the way vegetables usually are. For the full text, search for "Nix v. Hedden" at: laws.findlaw.com/.
11:56:58 PM 
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Stella's Pastry and Cafe, in North Beach, was totally rec'd to me by someone (who knows I love pastries); I went in once, and it seemed they had hardly anything avail. But I want to go back. Anyway, I was looking up Stella's, and found a pretty oddball review of the place, from dine.com's reviewer Jenny Hyun, who gives it 3 stars out of 5: "Well, I've gone here about 4 times now and I'm positive it's not because of the cakes and pastries, even though they are good but because I'm into Italian guys and usually I can get sight of a good looking one whenever I go there. They are pricey. Nobody ever said man watching was cheap."