The noble tomato

THERE WAS ONCE A TOMATO that took great pride in her ancestry. Portraits and photographs of her noble ancestors would cover a whole wall in her living room, and she used to spend hours gazing at them in wonder.

The noble tomato and her family tree

“My family line is the most noble generation of vegetables in the whole garden”, she would say.

“Nonsense!”, a cucumber once told her. “If your family line was indeed noble, you would know that tomatoes are fruit rather than vegetables”.

As soon as the words reached her ears, she became red with shame. She went home and locked herself in her room, and could not come to terms with what had happened. Full of curiosity to get to know if tomatoes are in fact fruit rather than vegetables, she started asking everyone she could find, but no one gave a certain answer.

“This time I am really confused”, she thought “I no longer know whether I am a fruit or a vegetable”. She then started searching in dusty book tomes at her home library. She read and read, and came to no conclusion. Other writers would classify the tomato as a vegetable, and others as a fruit. She had torn down the whole bookcase, but could find no book to satisfy her answer. Heaps of dusty, old tomes were lying on the floor.

She then thought of asking the old tree that took roots outside her house. It replied: “Wise is the man who knows that tomato is a fruit. Even wiser is the man that does not put her in the fruit-salad”.

The tomato became even more confused with the old tree’s answer that sounded like a riddle. “Well, is my family line noble, or not?”, she asked again.

The old tree then replied once more: “Our family line is half our nobility. The other half, is cleanliness, which is next to godliness. So go now and put the dusty books you misplaced back on their bookshelves in proper order”.

As soon as the answer reached her ears, the tomato burst with joy. She took a mop and a bucket, and made the library shine with cleanliness. From that time on, she takes more pride in her house being clean, than in her royal ancestry....

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Fruit and Vegetables A'

The noble tomato

Fruit and Vegetables A'

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