In the European Union Jam Directive, written in the 80s and updated in 2001, it describes the parameters required for a product to be labelled as jam or marmalade and from which the UK Jam and Similar Products legislation is based, there is the phrase "for the purposes of this directive, tomatoes, the edible part of rhubarb stalks, carrots, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, melons and water melons are considered to be fruit". This was introduced to pacify the Portuguese who are strongly into Carrot Marmalade!

Of course carrots are not biologically a fruit as they do not carry the seeds, and the above paragraph in the jam directive does not reclassify them as such, just allows them to be used as fruit.

Duerrs, the famous British Jam maker does not use any carrots in their products, although twin carrotmany years ago they did try carrot jam and tomato jam. It is recalled that this was to try out what the products would taste like due to the above mentioned in the jam directive. The unanimous conclusion at the time was that tomato jam was actually very nice but carrot jam was awful! Try this Carrot Jam Recipe [www.carrotmuseum.co.uk].

Marmalade is a curiously British term, marmalade means a jam made with citrus fruit. The term was fought over in the European Community as other countries wanted to do away with it or change its meaning. Marmalade contains citrus fruit (sometimes with something else like ginger or ) and is usually characterised by the cut of the peel. Marmalade is thought to have originated in Portugal, where quinces (marmelo) were cooked with sugar to make a preserve. The British were the first to add the peel back to orange marmalade, to make the preserve set instead of using apple juice, hence the British tradition of orange marmalade.

Carrot is definitely a vegetable. Though vegetable is strictly a culinary term, and open to mis-interpretation. Carrot Marmalade Recipe here [www.carrotmuseum.co.uk].

The Wikipedia gives a good definition here. [en.wikipedia.org]

Normally a vegetable is a part of a plant which is edible (usually grown to be eaten) and does not contain the seeds, or is not formed from the flower.

For example an apple tree flowers, the flower then turns into the actual apple, which in turn contains seeds. Same with a banana, plum etc. Hence a tomato is a fruit.

A vegetable like the carrot, flowers and produces seeds externally, usually in the form of a seed bud from the flower.

Carrot is biennial, flowering in the second year, above ground.