This article throws light upon the nine categories of vegetables. The categories are: 1. Brassica 2. Fruit vegetables 3. Gourds and squashes 4. Greens 5. Fungus 6. Roots and tubers 7. Pods and seeds 8. Stems 9. Baby vegetables.
Category # 1. Brassica:
Brassica or the cabbage family consists of vegetables used for their head, leaves, or flowers. These are mostly available in winter and hence, are mostly used in broths and braised dishes to accompany meats.
Cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and bokchoy
Category # 2. Fruit vegetables:
These are the fruits of flowering plants. They also contain seeds.
Tomato, avocado, brinjal, and pepper
Category # 3. Gourds and squashes:
These are available both during summers and winters. The gourds are classified into summer squashes and winter gourds. There are over 750 varieties of gourds available and they are grown around the world. The long trailing vines of a complex root system bears this vegetable, adorned by large leaves and attractive flowers. The flowers are also used extensively in modern cookery.
Bottle gourd, butternut squash, and ridged gourd
Category # 4. Greens:
The term greens is usually referred to vegetables which are leafy and eaten cooked, with the exception of lettuce. Most of the greens are mildly spiced and slightly strong in flavours.
Spinach, watercress, and radicchio
Category # 5. Fungus:
Although not a real vegetable, fungus is a plant that has no seed, stem, or flower and usually reproduces from the spores. It is commonly known as mushroom and usually has a stalk covered with an umbrella. One must be careful in selecting a mushroom, as not all varieties are edible and some can cause poisoning and can be fatal.
Button mushroom, shitake, portabella, and porcini
Category # 6. Roots and tubers:
Roots and tubers are interchangeable words. However, scientifically speaking, tubers are fat underground stems while roots are the single bulbs which extend into the ground which supplies the plant with nutrients. The tubers would be more starchy.
Root vegetables—carrots, radish, and onions. Tubers—potatoes, Jerusalem artichoke, and colocasia
Category # 7. Pods and seeds:
Some vegetables contain seeds enclosed in a pod. In some cases only seeds are eaten like in case of peas, corn, and pulses. In some cases the plant is eaten as whole such as okra, snap peas, and French beans. The pods and seeds contain the highest source of proteins and carbohydrates.
Green peas, okra, snap peas, and pulses
Category # 8. Stems:
Also known as stalk vegetables, they have the highest percentage of cellulose fibre and are usually eaten when they are young and tender.
Celery and rhubarb
Category # 9. Baby vegetables:
This is a very modern classification of vegetables that include vegetables which are either created with hybrid varieties or are picked up before maturity. These vegetables are rarely peeled as they are quite attractive and one would not like to lose the appeal.
Tiny turnips, baby cauliflower, baby carrots, and baby squashes