英语听力文摘 English Digest 680 有名的西红柿辩论（在线收听）

The Great Tomato Debate

In 1893, the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case that hinged on whether the tomato was a fruit or a vegetable.

Defining A Vegetable

According to botanists, most of the edible parts of a plant are vegetables. Vegetables can be a root, stem, leaf, or flower. Even bulbs, like onions, and buds like brussels sprouts are vegetables.

Defining Fruits

A fruit, on the other hand, is always the matured ovary of a flowering plant. Fruit is formed when pollen, which carries sperm, lands on the sticky part of the flower.

The sperm travel from the pollen grain into the ovary then into the ovule where one fertilizes the egg. Once the egg is fertilized, the ovule becomes a seed, and the whole ovary becomes a fruit. This is why fruits usually contain seeds.

An Unlikely Fruit

Of course, when we generally think of fruit we think of sweet fruits like apples and pears that are eaten raw or baked in dessert. We don’t think of tomatoes or cucumbers as fruit, although they are fruit because they develop from the ovary of the plant.

Scandalous!

Back to the 1893 court case. The Supreme Court declared that tomatoes were vegetables because they are usually eaten cooked like vegetables. The decision allowed the court to uphold a tax on imported tomatoes because, at that time, vegetables were taxed but fruits were not.

有名的西红柿辩论

1893年，美国最高法院有一场关于西红柿到底是水果还是蔬菜的案子。

蔬菜的定义

根据植物学家的观点，一种植物中，可以吃的部分大都称为蔬菜。蔬菜可以是根、茎、叶或者花。甚至球根植物，如洋葱，芽类如球芽甘蓝都是蔬菜。

水果的定义

另一方面，水果通常是一种花类植物的成熟子房。当花粉携带精子着落在花朵粘性的部分，水果就形成了。

精子从花粉颗粒进入子房，然后进到受精的地方--胚珠。一旦受精卵形成，胚珠就变成一颗种子，整个子房就变成一个水果。这就是为什么水果通常都包含种子的原因。

不可能的水果

当然，我们通常认为水果是我们想象中的那种甜味的水果，像苹果和梨子，可以生吃或烘焙作为餐后甜点。我们不认为西红柿或黄瓜是水果，尽管他们确实是水果，因为他们是由植物的子房发育而来的。

丑闻!

回到1893年的案子，最高法院判定，西红柿是蔬菜，因为西红柿通常用烹饪蔬菜那样的方法来吃。这个决定允许法庭对进口西红柿征税，因为那时候，蔬菜是要收税的，但水果不用。