The term ‘vegetable’ in its broadest sense refers to any kind of plant life or plant product; it usually refers to the fresh edible portion of an herbaceous plant consumed either raw or cooked.
The edible portion may be a root like a rutabaga, beet, carrot and sweet potato; a tuber or storage stem such as potato and taro, the stem as in asparagus and kohrabi, a bud such as Brussels sprouts; a bulb such as onion and garlic a petiole or leafstock like celery and rhubarb; a leaf such as cabbage, lettuce, parsley, spinach and chive; an immature flower like cauliflower, broccoli and artichoke; a seed like pea and Lima beans; the immature fruit like brinjal (egg-plant), cucumber and sweet corn (maize) or the mature fruit like tomato and chili.
Those plants or plant parts that are usually consumed with the main course of a meal are popularly regarded as vegetables while those mainly used as desserts are considered fruits.
Actually cooked vegetables constitute our principle meals whole fruit are consumed as desserts.
Thus cucumber and tomato are botanically fruits but they are mainly vegetables.
The Term of Vegetable
