Bananas are one of the most common fruits in America. They are fruits both botanically and culinarily, although both classifications could use a bit of discussion.
Among botanists, there would be no doubt that bananas are fruit, but it may be a bit confusing from a dry reading of the technical definition. Botanical fruits are the seed-bearing parts of the plant, but you might have not noticed seeds in your bananas before. Indeed, if you plant a banana, nothing will grow. Commercial bananas do typically have small, black seeds in them, but they are very tiny and infertile. This is because no one wants to spit out seeds while eating their bananas, so modern bananas have been bred to make them insignificant. Banana plants are reproduced by cutting off and planting small offshoots called pups that grow at the base of the tree. However, despite all of this, because it is derived from the ovary, the part of the plant that ordinarily has seeds (and it actually does have seeds), it is still classified as a fruit botanically.
However, you shouldn’t care about the botanical definition. Even though bananas are botanically berries, bananas are not eaten as berries. They are far too large to be eaten whole and have a thick, bitter skin which has to be peeled first anyway. Banana plants are botanically “herbs”, but we don’t season our dishes with their grated fronds because of this fact. The culinary and botanical definitions are separate.
Culinarily, it is even more obviously a fruit though. Kindergartners learn them as the fruit that stands for B. Bananas are typically eaten raw—straight from the peel even. They are very sweet. About the only time they’re not eaten raw is when they’re made into delicious bread and eaten for dessert. The only ripple in the matter is that a subset of bananas are used for cooking called plantains. Plantains actually are vegetables, but ordinary bananas are still fruit.