Fruits and Vegetables Quiz
Bananas are berries, strawberries are not, and a tomato once went to court: 15 questions on fruit and veg.
Which of these fruits is classed as a true berry by botanists?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Banana
A true berry is a fleshy fruit that develops from a single ovary, and a banana fits that definition. Strawberries are accessory fruits, while raspberries and blackberries are aggregates of tiny drupelets.
By the same botanical rules, grapes, tomatoes, avocados, kiwifruit and even pumpkins all count as berries.
Which pigment gives carrots their familiar orange colour?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Beta carotene
Beta carotene is the orange pigment carrots are rich in, and the body converts it into vitamin A, which is why carrots are linked with healthy eyesight. Lycopene is the red pigment in tomatoes.
Purple, yellow and white carrots all exist, and purple types were common in Central Asia long before orange ones became the standard.
Which so-called nut is actually a legume that grows underground?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Peanut
Peanuts are legumes in the pea and bean family, and their pods ripen below the soil after the flower stalk bends down and pushes into the ground. Almonds and cashews are seeds of drupe fruits.
Peanuts are also called groundnuts, and the plant's habit of burying its own pods is known as geocarpy.
A prune is the dried form of which fruit?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Plum
Prunes are dried plums, usually from freestone European plum varieties that are sweet enough to dry without fermenting around the stone. Dried grapes are raisins and dried apricots keep their own name.
California growers rebranded prunes as dried plums in the early 2000s to make them sound more appealing to younger shoppers.
Which part of the rhubarb plant is poisonous and should never be eaten?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
The leaves
Rhubarb leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and other toxins, so only the tart stalks are eaten. Large amounts of leaf can cause kidney damage and have caused poisonings.
Rhubarb is botanically a vegetable, but a New York court ruled it a fruit in 1947 because it was mostly eaten in pies and desserts.
In which part of the world was the potato first domesticated?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
The Andes of South America
Farmers around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia domesticated the potato roughly 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. The Spanish carried it to Europe in the sixteenth century.
Peru's International Potato Center keeps more than 4,000 native varieties, in colours from deep purple to bright yellow.
Which fruit contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down protein and can stop gelatine from setting?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Pineapple
Bromelain is the protein-digesting enzyme found in pineapple, which is why fresh pineapple makes jelly refuse to set and leaves your mouth feeling raw. Papaya has a different enzyme called papain.
Cooking or canning pineapple destroys bromelain, so tinned pineapple works fine in a jelly or gelatine dessert.
Which gas, released by ripening apples and bananas, speeds up the ripening of fruit stored nearby?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Ethylene
Ethylene is a plant hormone released as a gas by ripening fruit, and it triggers ripening in other fruit nearby. That is why a banana in a paper bag with a hard avocado softens it within a day or two.
Commercial banana shippers pick the fruit green and ripen it on demand in ethylene-filled rooms shortly before it reaches the shops.
Which fruit has the most vitamin C per 100 grams?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Guava
Common raw guava holds about 228 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams in the USDA database, roughly four times an orange at around 53 mg. Kiwifruit and strawberries sit in between at roughly 60 to 90 mg.
A single medium orange still comfortably covers an adult's daily vitamin C requirement, which is why the citrus reputation sticks.
Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage and Brussels sprouts are all cultivated forms of which single plant species?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Brassica oleracea
All of these vegetables were bred from wild cabbage, Brassica oleracea, by selecting for different parts of the plant: leaves for kale, flower buds for broccoli and swollen stems for kohlrabi.
Brassica rapa gave us turnips and bok choy, while Brassica napus is the source of rapeseed oil, sold as canola in North America.
Apples, pears and quinces belong to which botanical fruit type?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Pome
A pome is a fruit whose edible flesh grows from the swollen base of the flower around a core of seed chambers, which describes apples, pears and quinces. Drupes have a single stone, like peaches and cherries.
Citrus fruits are hesperidia and melons and cucumbers are pepos, while the fleshy part of an apple is technically the flower's receptacle.
The sweet orange is a natural hybrid of the mandarin and which other citrus fruit?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Pomelo
Genetic studies show the sweet orange arose as a cross between the pomelo and the mandarin, two of the handful of ancestral citrus species. Almost every familiar citrus is a hybrid of those originals.
The grapefruit came later, from a chance cross between a sweet orange and a pomelo in the Caribbean, probably in Barbados.
In which year did the US Supreme Court rule that tomatoes count as vegetables for import tariffs?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
1893
In Nix v. Hedden, decided on 10 May 1893, the court unanimously ruled that tomatoes were vegetables in everyday speech, so they faced the 10 percent vegetable duty under the Tariff Act of 1883.
Justice Horace Gray acknowledged in the opinion that botanically a tomato is a fruit, but held that common usage decided the tariff question.
Which fruit is the largest to grow on a tree, with specimens weighing over 40 kg (88 lb)?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Jackfruit
Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit, and Guinness World Records lists a 42.72 kg (94 lb) specimen from 2016. The fruit grows directly from the trunk and thick branches of the tree.
Unripe jackfruit has a fibrous, meaty texture, which is why it has become a popular pulled pork substitute in vegan cooking.
Which fruit was sold as the Chinese gooseberry until a New Zealand exporter renamed it in 1959?
Got a hunch? Pick the answer that feels right.
Kiwifruit
The fruit is native to central and eastern China and was grown commercially in New Zealand, where Turners & Growers adopted the name kiwifruit in June 1959 to help sales in the United States.
New Zealand's exporters had briefly tried the name melonette before settling on kiwifruit, after the country's flightless national bird.
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All Food and Drink quizzes →About the Fruits and Vegetables Quiz
The produce aisle hides more surprises than most people expect. A banana is a berry but a strawberry is not, the potato was first farmed high in the Andes thousands of years before it reached Ireland, and the US Supreme Court once had to decide whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.
These 15 questions cover the botany behind everyday fruit and vegetables, where our favourite crops came from, and the nutrition basics worth knowing, from which fruit packs the most vitamin C to the gas that ripens a bowl of bananas overnight. It suits home cooks, gardeners, students and anyone who likes to win the argument at the dinner table.
You will find 15 multiple choice questions here, each with four options. Difficulty: Medium. Most people finish in about 6 minutes, and every answer comes with a short explanation and one extra fact worth keeping.
How to play
Read the question and pick one of the four answers. The correct answer is revealed straight away with a short explanation, then press Next question to keep going. At the end you get your score out of 15 and a full review of your round. Play again any time and the questions arrive in a fresh order. There is no timer and no account.
Good to know before you play
Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?
Botanically it is a fruit, a berry that develops from the flower's ovary, but cooks treat it as a vegetable and a US court ruled it one for tariff purposes in 1893.
Which fruits are not really berries?
Strawberries, raspberries and blackberries are not true berries in botany, while bananas, grapes, tomatoes, avocados and kiwifruit are.
Which common fruit has the most vitamin C?
Guava is far ahead of the usual suspects, with roughly four times the vitamin C of an orange by weight.
Answer key: all 15 questions with explanations
- Which of these fruits is classed as a true berry by botanists?
Banana A true berry is a fleshy fruit that develops from a single ovary, and a banana fits that definition. Strawberries are accessory fruits, while raspberries and blackberries are aggregates of tiny drupelets. By the same botanical rules, grapes, tomatoes, avocados, kiwifruit and even pumpkins all count as berries. - Which pigment gives carrots their familiar orange colour?
Beta carotene Beta carotene is the orange pigment carrots are rich in, and the body converts it into vitamin A, which is why carrots are linked with healthy eyesight. Lycopene is the red pigment in tomatoes. Purple, yellow and white carrots all exist, and purple types were common in Central Asia long before orange ones became the standard. - Which so-called nut is actually a legume that grows underground?
Peanut Peanuts are legumes in the pea and bean family, and their pods ripen below the soil after the flower stalk bends down and pushes into the ground. Almonds and cashews are seeds of drupe fruits. Peanuts are also called groundnuts, and the plant's habit of burying its own pods is known as geocarpy. - A prune is the dried form of which fruit?
Plum Prunes are dried plums, usually from freestone European plum varieties that are sweet enough to dry without fermenting around the stone. Dried grapes are raisins and dried apricots keep their own name. California growers rebranded prunes as dried plums in the early 2000s to make them sound more appealing to younger shoppers. - Which part of the rhubarb plant is poisonous and should never be eaten?
The leaves Rhubarb leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and other toxins, so only the tart stalks are eaten. Large amounts of leaf can cause kidney damage and have caused poisonings. Rhubarb is botanically a vegetable, but a New York court ruled it a fruit in 1947 because it was mostly eaten in pies and desserts. - In which part of the world was the potato first domesticated?
The Andes of South America Farmers around Lake Titicaca in southern Peru and northwestern Bolivia domesticated the potato roughly 7,000 to 10,000 years ago. The Spanish carried it to Europe in the sixteenth century. Peru's International Potato Center keeps more than 4,000 native varieties, in colours from deep purple to bright yellow. - Which fruit contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down protein and can stop gelatine from setting?
Pineapple Bromelain is the protein-digesting enzyme found in pineapple, which is why fresh pineapple makes jelly refuse to set and leaves your mouth feeling raw. Papaya has a different enzyme called papain. Cooking or canning pineapple destroys bromelain, so tinned pineapple works fine in a jelly or gelatine dessert. - Which gas, released by ripening apples and bananas, speeds up the ripening of fruit stored nearby?
Ethylene Ethylene is a plant hormone released as a gas by ripening fruit, and it triggers ripening in other fruit nearby. That is why a banana in a paper bag with a hard avocado softens it within a day or two. Commercial banana shippers pick the fruit green and ripen it on demand in ethylene-filled rooms shortly before it reaches the shops. - Which fruit has the most vitamin C per 100 grams?
Guava Common raw guava holds about 228 mg of vitamin C per 100 grams in the USDA database, roughly four times an orange at around 53 mg. Kiwifruit and strawberries sit in between at roughly 60 to 90 mg. A single medium orange still comfortably covers an adult's daily vitamin C requirement, which is why the citrus reputation sticks. - Broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage and Brussels sprouts are all cultivated forms of which single plant species?
Brassica oleracea All of these vegetables were bred from wild cabbage, Brassica oleracea, by selecting for different parts of the plant: leaves for kale, flower buds for broccoli and swollen stems for kohlrabi. Brassica rapa gave us turnips and bok choy, while Brassica napus is the source of rapeseed oil, sold as canola in North America. - Apples, pears and quinces belong to which botanical fruit type?
Pome A pome is a fruit whose edible flesh grows from the swollen base of the flower around a core of seed chambers, which describes apples, pears and quinces. Drupes have a single stone, like peaches and cherries. Citrus fruits are hesperidia and melons and cucumbers are pepos, while the fleshy part of an apple is technically the flower's receptacle. - The sweet orange is a natural hybrid of the mandarin and which other citrus fruit?
Pomelo Genetic studies show the sweet orange arose as a cross between the pomelo and the mandarin, two of the handful of ancestral citrus species. Almost every familiar citrus is a hybrid of those originals. The grapefruit came later, from a chance cross between a sweet orange and a pomelo in the Caribbean, probably in Barbados. - In which year did the US Supreme Court rule that tomatoes count as vegetables for import tariffs?
1893 In Nix v. Hedden, decided on 10 May 1893, the court unanimously ruled that tomatoes were vegetables in everyday speech, so they faced the 10 percent vegetable duty under the Tariff Act of 1883. Justice Horace Gray acknowledged in the opinion that botanically a tomato is a fruit, but held that common usage decided the tariff question. - Which fruit is the largest to grow on a tree, with specimens weighing over 40 kg (88 lb)?
Jackfruit Jackfruit is the largest tree-borne fruit, and Guinness World Records lists a 42.72 kg (94 lb) specimen from 2016. The fruit grows directly from the trunk and thick branches of the tree. Unripe jackfruit has a fibrous, meaty texture, which is why it has become a popular pulled pork substitute in vegan cooking. - Which fruit was sold as the Chinese gooseberry until a New Zealand exporter renamed it in 1959?
Kiwifruit The fruit is native to central and eastern China and was grown commercially in New Zealand, where Turners & Growers adopted the name kiwifruit in June 1959 to help sales in the United States. New Zealand's exporters had briefly tried the name melonette before settling on kiwifruit, after the country's flightless national bird.
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