Is corn a fruit or a vegetable?

Lew Zealand

Helper
<Demetrius>

If it comes from the flower part of the plant , botanically it's a fruit. So Corn is a fruit. Deal with it.

If doesn't comes from the flower but instead the roots, leaves, stems, etc. botanically it has a different classification, like a drupe, tuber, syconium, many different terms.

Vegetable is a culinary term and is useful for people who like to prepare food. Which is a lot of people because I hear that food is a good thing. So Corn is a vegetable. Also deal with it.


Since different systems use the 2 words, a Venn diagram will have some things listed as both a botanical Fruit and a culinary Vegetable. Like tasty Corn.


</Demetrius>

There's that Botany training finally coming handy for its stated use:

Pedantry.
 
In Stardew Valley, fruit makes wine & jam, and vegetables make juice and pickles. I make corn pickles for Harvey.

Vegetable really just means edible vegetation. All edible parts of plants, and even mushrooms, are vegetables.
People get confused about fruits & vegetables, but it's not really hard to understand. The part of a plant that comes after the flower and has the seeds, is the fruit. Not all fruit is edible, but all edible fruit is also a vegetable. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, pumpkins, eggplant, apples, grapes, all fruits.
Grains are a little different because the part that you eat is the seed. Legumes and nuts are also seeds. It's edible vegetation, so it is a vegetable, and it comes after the flower, so it is a fruit, kinda. We classify it differently because it's not a fleshy fruit.
Corn can be used as a grain, dried and ground into flour to make breads and cereals, and calorie rich with lots of carbohydrates. Corn can also be served as a vegetable, fresh, unground.

Bananas are a weird one- a banana tree is actually a grass, and the edible part of most grasses is the seed. But bananas are definitely a fruit. And as I said before, it comes from a plant and you can eat it, so it's a vegetable.
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
...drupe, tuber, syconium...
What are some examples of some of these other terms? The only one I'm familiar with is tuber

Pedantry.
:laugh::demetrius:
Bananas are a weird one- a banana tree is actually a grass, and the edible part of most grasses is the seed. But bananas are definitely a fruit. And as I said before, it comes from a plant and you can eat it, so it's a vegetable.
Oh God, what kinda rabbit hole did I open up?

Okay so does that make bananas and other plantains a grain? Are there flowering grasses? Is that a thing?
uhhh i guess id call it grain. but what does that make grains??? aaaaaa:defeated::defeated:
This is about as far as I've gotten, lol
Grains like corn are a cereal grass. Technically, the part you eat is the fruit of the cereal grass, so I guess fruit, if you need to clasify it as one or the other, for some reason. I always put grains and legumes in their own classes aside from fruits and vegetables.
And now I learn that grasses are cereal, and not the stuff that I eat in the morning... Oh boy.....:sweat:
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
:laugh: Corn, oat, wheat, barley, and rice are all examples of cereal grains (and are harvested from cereal grasses), which is why breakfast cereals -which commonly use one or multiple of these as a base- are called that.
I dislike this rabbit hole but am having fun...begrudgingly...

I tried to look up some examples and apparently there are ARGUMENTS over whether an avocado is a drupe or a berry. This is indeed an endless rabbit hole!
One time I got into the great pineapple pizza debate/rage-fest, and one person argued that berries (pineapples) don't belong on pizza, but after a little research/rabbit holing, I discovered that tomotos are berries (fruit, yes I'm looking at you dimi)
 

Lew Zealand

Helper
What are some examples of some of these other terms? The only one I'm familiar with is tuber
Generally stone fruits are drupes, like Peaches, Nectarines, Plums, etc. Syconium is kinda cheating as there can be only one: Fig!

:laugh::demetrius:

Oh God, what kinda rabbit hole did I open up?
Botany is as detailed as any other science, with all the associated terminology and tiresome jargon.

Okay so does that make bananas and other plantains a grain? Are there flowering grasses? Is that a thing?
Grasses are angiosperms, making all of them flowering plants. Bananas are berries, so a subclass of fruits.

This is about as far as I've gotten, lol

And now I learn that grasses are cereal, and not the stuff that I eat in the morning... Oh boy.....:sweat:
It generally makes sense once you consider that pop culture labels are for ease of advertising, and are irrelevant for scientific description. Nobody cares what type of plant part a fig is, only that you can call it a fruit and therefore tart it up with a ton of sugar to make it palatable.
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
Oh okay, whew, that was a close one. I feel a little better...

But wait, do people really consider corn to be dry???
 

Lew Zealand

Helper
Oh okay, whew, that was a close one. I feel a little better...

But wait, do people really consider corn to be dry???
Depends on what you're using it for. The majority of corn used for animal feed or destined for milling into cornmeal is dried out for long term storage and is considered a grain. But the corn we eat or that's used for popcorn has loads of water in it and is generally considered a starch or starchy vegetable.
 
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