Of Cabbages and Things

When you eat nuts you eat bits of wood. Softish bits of wood. The best bits of wood are the macadamia kind, followed by cashew wood. Peanuts, contrary to their name, aren't wood. They're legumes, so they're seeds, I think.



You'd think false friends like zucchinis and cucumbers (people in the Fresh Produce section have got these confused) wouldn't be related, but they are. Other members of their family are watermelons and pumpkins, and other voluptuous produce. Because marrows are so curvy and weighty, their puny vines can't hold them above the ground.

Don't puzzle that fruit and vegetables seem to share a family. Seed bearing fruit is a more delineated category than vegetable, which seems more to refer anything organic and savoury, excluding herbs and legumes. Of course that caveat is often violated when referring to vegetables. Is rocket a herb or a vegetable? I guess it depends on how Fresh Produce packages it. But here my botanical knowledge ends; maybe there is a qualitative distinction between herb and say lettuce - one is annular and the other isn't?



I am not a gardener.