page_title: Berry (botany)
section_title: Culinary
hierarchical_section_title: Berry (botany) / Uses / Culinary
caption_attribution_description: English: South Horizons Residents Club, en:South Horizons, Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong
context_page_description: In botany, a berry is a fleshy fruit without a stone produced from a single flower containing one ovary. Berries so defined include grapes, currants, and tomatoes, as well as cucumbers, eggplants and bananas, but exclude certain fruits that meet the culinary definition of berries, such as strawberries and raspberries. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire outer layer of the ovary wall ripens into a potentially edible "pericarp". Berries may be formed from one or more carpels from the same flower. The seeds are usually embedded in the fleshy interior of the ovary, but there are some non-fleshy exceptions, such as peppers, with air rather than pulp around their seeds.
  Many berries are edible, but others, such as the fruits of the potato and the deadly nightshade, are poisonous to humans.
  A plant that bears berries is said to be bacciferous or baccate.
  In everyday English, a "berry" is any small edible fruit. Berries are usually juicy, round, brightly coloured, sweet or sour, and do not have a stone or pit, although many small seeds may be present.
context_section_description: Berries, defined loosely, have been valuable as a food source to humans since prior to the start of agriculture, and remain among the primary food sources of other primates. Botanically defined berries with culinary uses include:
  Berries in the strictest sense: including bananas and plantains, blueberries, cranberries, coffee berries, gooseberries, red-, black- and white currants, tomatoes, grapes and peppers (Capsicum fruits)
  Hesperidia: citrus fruits, including oranges, lemons and limes
  Pepos: cucurbits, including squashes, cucumbers, melons and watermelons
  Some berries are brightly coloured, due to plant pigments such as anthocyanins and other flavonoids. These pigments are localized mainly in the outer surface and the seeds. Such pigments have antioxidant properties in vitro, but there is no reliable evidence that they have antioxidant or any other useful functions within the human body. Consequently, it is not permitted to claim that foods containing plant pigments have antioxidant health value on product labels in the United States or Europe.
  Some spices are prepared from berries. Allspice is made from the dried berries of Pimenta dioica. The fruits (berries) of different cultivars of Capsicum annuum are used to make paprika (mildly hot), chili pepper (hot) and cayenne pepper (very hot).
caption: Mandarins, here served in a Hong Kong restaurant, are among the oldest cultivated citrus fruits.
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