Berry Club by J.L. Westlover (@mrlovenstein)
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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The scientific definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit that came from a single ovary in the flower. Thats it. I don't even know why they used the name berry on this term because it makes no sense and I tell you this as someone studying botany. Like none of the nuts you know are true nuts either. If a nuts shell opens on its own it's not a nut so peanuts, walnuts and almonds are not nuts because if you plant these in fresh soil they will sprout and the shell opens. However if you plant a fresh hazelnut the shell stays on while the plant germinates from the seed, hence it's a true nut. So stupid I know. This has use in botany but these botanical definitions have no use for normal people. That's why we talk about "botanical definitions" and "culinary definitions". In the common culinary definition a berry is a small freshy fruit which is the definition you know.
Bonus: in botany everything from a flower is a fruit. That means wheat is a fruit, rice is a fruit, beans are fruits, peas are fruits, all nuts are fruits, every seed is a fruit, a pine cone is a fruit, and it just goes on. But no one in their right mind would make a fruit asket with pine cones right? The botanical definition is useless outside the field of botany.
Just to add random info/trivia: it's interesting to note that this mess between "botanical fruit" and "culinary fruit" is largely language-dependent. In Portuguese for example it doesn't happen - because botanical fruit is "fruto" (with "o") and culinary fruit is "fruta" (with "a").
So for example, if you tell someone that cucumber is a "fruto", that is not contentious; you're just using a somewhat posh word if you aren't in a botanical context. And if you tell the person that tomato is a "fruta", you're just being silly.
Berry has no direct equivalent. If you must specify that the fruit comes from a single ovary, you call it "fruto simples" (lit. simple botanical-fruit), as opposed to "fruto múltiplo" (multiple fruit - e.g. pineapple). Popularly people will call stuff like strawberries and mulberries by multiple names, like "frutinhas" (little fruits) and the likes.
In German, the fruits you would put in a fruit salat are called Obst, in contrast to Frucht (fruit) / Früchte (fruits) which can be 'anything' complying with the botanical definition. You'd refer to tomatoes and paprika as Frucht-Gemüse (fruit vegetables).
A salad works, but isn't it easier to just snort it? :^)
Sorry for the shitty joke above. Seriously now: after a quick check, apparently the cognate of "Obst" still exists in English, as "ovest". Nowadays only used dialectally for nuts like acorns being fed to the pigs. It would be fun if it was reintroduced as "culinary fruit", following the German example, and keeping the Latin borrowing "fruit" for the botanical def.
hmm I do like being silly
A pine cone is a fruit?
I was taught a pine cone was a "naked flower", as it never developed petals and ovary developed directly and bore the seed.
It appears you are right. Conifers and other gymnosperms are totally outside the definition of fruit and cannot have fruit by definition. The seed cone is however an analog of a fruit for the gymnosperms. It doesn't have to do with petals however. Lots of flowering plants don't have petals. Example are these wheat flowers. You have to cut up the plant to even see the flower.
New knowledge acquired! Thank you. Wasn't aware of that detail.
we should be inventing new words. A fleshy fruit from a single ovary in a flower is now called a skibidi
a banana is a skibidi. a tomato is a skibidi
Huh... peanuts coming from underground is such an obvious memory for me I don't recall where I learned it. It feels like something everyone just knows, like carrots, potatoes, and yams. It didn't occur to me outside of today's lucky 10000 that a lot wouldn't know.
I wonder if its really aot of people or just some.
Peanuts growing underground is also really weird. Very few plants hide their fruit like that.
Fun fact: in German, peanuts are called "Erdnuss", which literally translates to "soil nut", which seems actually fit like a glove. To be honest, I never thought about the name it has. Learn something new every day.