The Misappliance Of Science

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You say vegetable, I say fruit, let's call the whole thing off

True: Tomatoes are not vegetables, they're fruit.

Specifically, berries. A fruit is defined as the seed of a plant, or that part of the plant that contains the seed. Thus the tomato is a fruit, along with cucumbers, squash, and beans.

A berry is defined as "a fleshy fruit formed from one compound ovary containing one or many seeds" that does not resemble a pepo (melon) or pome (apple). That nets you tomato again. Tomatoes are botanically berries. The cite for this can be found here.

This is somewhat muddied by the fact that "vegetable", as people understand the word when talking about edible plants, does not have a botanical definition. "Vegetables" as they are referred to are defined by their use rather than by any inherent feature of the particular plant, and it is in this group that people most often place tomatoes. Thus the ULish feature to what is otherwise mere trivia: the counter-intuitive "things are not always what they seem" aspect of this piece of trivia encourages its spread.

Documented: Tomatoes are legally defined as vegetables, however.

This is the likely genesis of the popularity of the particular "tomatoes aren't vegetables" trivia. In 1887, the Supreme Court of the US defined tomatoes as vegetables for the purpose of import tariffs. They acknowledged the botanical reality of their fruithood, but ruled that in common understanding and usage, they are treated as vegetables and should be taxed as such.

You can find an in-depth recounting of this here.

References:

• Don Freeman says "berry"
• Vegetarians in Paradise give the legal history of the tomato