Ethnicity is a Vegetable, Part One: The Vegetable Part of It

Ed is havin' a young 'un. This is now how posts on this blog start, I see. And instead of investigating/whining about some part of society that bugs us for inscrutable reasons, we now have the noble duty to warn Ed's young foetus about parts of society that bug us for inscrutable reasons. Warning is much nobler than whining, right?

So, let's begin, shall we? Why don't you hop up on Uncle Joe's lap, young foetus, and listen to a tale filled with dread, wonder, and, ultimately, actually, neither of those two.

Today's exercise in edification will attempt to answer this question: What is ethnicity? As an analogy/delay tactic, I will put off that question, and ask another: What is a vegetable? By way of contrast, and in order to completely lose my entire audience before the end of the third paragraph, I will first ask one more question: What is a fruit?

What Is a Fruit?

This one's the easy one. A fruit, saith Merriam-Webster, is a ripened ovary of a seed plant and its contents. Done. QED. Cogito ergo sum. We all know dozens of examples: apples, oranges, bananas. Weirder ones like kiwifruit, pomegranates, and starfruit are nonetheless easily recognizable as fruit: hard outside, fleshy/juicy inside, and seeds. So, there you go - that's fruit.

Next, we move on to....wait, what's that, little foetus? Isn't a tomato really a fruit? Oh, little one - you have so much to learn about this wonderful world! A tomato's a vegetable, of course. Which leads me to my next question:

What Is a.....hmm? little one? You say a tomato is hard outside, juicy inside, with seeds? Well, sure, but it's still a vegetable, which as you might have guessed was my next ques.... Say what? You brought your personal botanist over? My, but you are an impertinent little foetus! And your botanist says that a tomato is a ripened ovary of the tomato plant? Well, if that's true, then that would make a tomato a fruit, and....what's that botanist? It is? Well, if you go by that definition, then so are cucumbers, green peppers, green peas, and...and...wow. Okay. So lots of things we call vegetables are biologically fruits. Interesting. That now leads me, much more tentatively than before, to my next question:

What Is a Vegetable?

This one, it turns out, is actually easier to answer. A vegetable is something green that we eat as a side dish at dinner. Ha ha, right? But not really - that is almost exactly what our dictionary friends say. M-W calls it a usually herbaceous plant grown for an edible part that is usually eaten as part of a meal.

But that's just the dictionary; let's see what our botanist friend has to say. Oh, dear botanist friend, can you tell me what a vegetable is? You know, scientifically? Now, don't be shy - I may not be a trained scientist, but I'm sure you can put it in layman's terms, right? So, go ahead. Please. I'm not....hey! Where are you going? Little foetus, your friend just ran away! I guess it's up to me. And I say that in the end, a vegetable is a plant that people call, or use as, a vegetable. So a tomato is a vegetable after all. And a cucumber. And lettuce, and carrots, and mushrooms. That makes me feel much better.

Now we can move on to the actual question of the blog, which is....now what? Mushrooms aren't plants, they're funguses? So what? Oh - I said that vegetables were plants. Fine. Vegetables are plants and funguses that we call veg....yes? Yes, I've had sushi wrapped in seaweed. Yes, I'd call seaweed a vegetable. But seaweed isn't a plant, it's algae? Wonderful. Next you'll tell me there are bacteria and animals that are vegetables, too! Ha! (please don't tell me there are bacteria and animals that are vegetables, too....)

Oh boy, I'm feeling a little woozy. I think I have to make this a two-part post. Off my lap, tiny proto-half-Ed, and back in utero for you!