Fruit or Vegetable?

I have always considered myself to be somewhat intelligent.  Then I encountered grandchildren who bask in the joy of outsmarting their grandfather.  Leading the parade is the only grandson who just completed an illustrious year of fourth grade education.  It seems that he knows the difference between fruits and vegetables.  One evening at the dinner table he put his ol’ Papa to shame when it came to pickles.  The question was whether a pickle was a fruit or a vegetable.  With no hesitation and the confidence of a person holding all the cards, I declared that a pickle was a vegetable. 

Wrong!

 

I don’t know what was worse . . . his victory dance around the table high fiving the family while wildly gyrating or me having to admit that I was wrong.  There is nothing worse than being shown up by a fourth grader . . . after all, I am the one with a bachelor’s degree and two master’s degrees.  I have 68 years of life experience.  I’m smart, even intelligent.  Yet, there I sat with pickle juice all over my face.

 

I survived.  I will admit that it took some time to heal from the trauma of being shown up by a ten-year-old.  The grandson’s victory was months ago and I’m still licking my wounded ego.  I will admit that I have put him back in the will and restored his picture with the rest of the grandchildren.  I’m mature enough to accept the intellectual gaps in my knowledge . . . after all, I’m 68—an age that spawns awe from grandchildren.  They are amazed that I am still alive.

 

Fruit or vegetable?  That is the question.  A pickle is made from a cucumber.  I have always assumed that a cucumber was a vegetable.  They are in salads.  They are on vegetable trays.  My parents referred to them as a vegetable.  My whole married life my wife has kept them in the “vegetable” drawer of the refrigerator.  That alone should be proof enough that a pickle—made from a cucumber—is a vegetable.  Wives are never wrong.

Tell that to a fourth grader.

 

A pickle is a fruit.  I must have been sleeping in class or absent the day that information was shared.  I do not remember hearing it in any of the science classes I took.  If I had heard it, it must have flown over my head and out the window.  According to the experts in the field of botany “a fruit is the mature, ripened ovary of a flowering plant that encloses and protects one of more seeds.”  In other words, if it has seeds it’s a fruit.  Botanists should know since they have dedicated their lives to the study of plants.  They are the experts.  Cucumbers have seeds.  Since pickles are made from cucumbers it has seeds.  SEEDS!  That makes it fruit no matter what anyone else says and that includes ill-informed mothers and wives.

 

A pickle is a fruit.  So are zucchini and squash. Pumpkins too.  If its got a seed it is a fruit joining the illustrious company of watermelons, oranges, and apples.  All those years I thought I was eating vegetables; I was really eating fruit.  Those pickles and tomatoes on my hamburger—fruit.  Who puts fruit on a hamburger?  Is this some tree-hugging California thing?  Not only did my fourth-grade grandson humiliate me, but he also revealed a betrayal I was never aware of.  I feel lied to all these years.  I look back on all those years of stubbornly arguing and refusing to eat zucchini and squash with my parents because they were vegetables.  All they had to say was that they were fruit. Kids love fruit.  End of argument.  But they did not know.  Had they known life would have been easier and simpler.  Kids could have spent more time playing with their friends instead of sitting at the table until they are their “vegetables”.

 

I conclude that in my humiliation I learned something I apparently did not know.  I’m old and mature enough to take my loss and move on.  I can even graciously accept that a fourth grader—my own grandson—got the best of me.  I now know that fruit has seeds and vegetables do not.  Now I know.  It won’t happen again . . . well, maybe.

 

 Shortly after suffering the humiliation of wrongly answering a grandchild’s question, I did what any self-respecting adult or elder would do—I looked it up on the Internet.  Everyone knows that the Internet is never wrong.  There it was in black-and-white . . . fruit has seeds.  But I also discovered an anomaly when it comes to the “fruit-vegetable” debate.  I discovered corn.  Is it fruit or a vegetable?  Also, dried and unground it is popcorn.  It is a miracle food.  It is the three-in-one bargain that kills two birds with one stone. With corn you can eat your fruit and vegetables all in one bite.

 

Tadum!  The key to restoring my intellectual superiority over a fourth grader . . . over my grandson.  I will bet that he doesn’t know that corn is the trifecta of plants.  I am practicing my victory dance in anticipation of my stifling win of regaining my dominance.  Everyone knows that grandparents, especially grandfathers, know everything.  And, if we don’t, we make it up.  Bet you didn’t know that.  Now you do.  See how smart I am.