Thursday, October 8, 2009

Une question.

I ask of you this one question.  Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

Today the little monkey had to bring in fruit for her "gouter" or snack.  She has to bring in fruit every Thursday to share with the class.  I have grown bored of buying the standard bananas and apples.  So today I spiced it up and had her bring in the little bite sized tomatoes and an orange.

I pick her up from school and asked how snack time went.  She said, "mama, we can't bring in tomatoes because they are not a fruit!  The teacher said so."  Well now.  We may have an international difference here.   Maybe next time I will let her bring in a pumpkin!

So what do you think?

4 comments:

sarahwaldin.com said...

is it too early to break the truth to Allie that teachers dont know everything and are not always right??

Monkeys in Paris said...

From Pops.

From Webster's New World College Dictionary--------

"tomato--a red or yellowish fruit with a juicy pulp, used as a vegetable: botanically it is a berry."

As mentioned in the one response to your blog, teachers aren't always right.Let Allie in on the fact!

Ray

Kitten Herder said...

We need to find that definition in a French dictionary and have Allie take it to school. You don't have to tell her what the 'note' says. Tell her that it's just a note from her parents. Make sure to highlight the word "fruit" in the dictionary. Cool that it's one of those words that is shared between English and French.

Unknown said...

Botanically speaking, a tomato is the ovary, together with its seeds, of a flowering plant, i.e. a fruit. However, from a culinary perspective the tomato is typically served as a meal, or part of a main course of a meal, meaning that it would be considered a vegetable (a culinary term which has no botanical meaning).

Ed G