Hello,

I read it, but the question is whether this is also true for Ashkenazi people of the sort my family is, for whom fruit is really an integral part of the food…

For example, it says:
However, foods intended for dessert—meaning foods that a person normally eats because of their good taste and not in order to become full, such as dates, grapes, watermelon, and the like—are not covered by the blessing “Who brings forth bread from the earth.” For that blessing applies only to foods intended to satisfy hunger, which are the main part of the meal. But desserts, which are eaten in order to add a good taste, and which people are accustomed to eat at the end of meals or between them, are an addition to the meal, and a separate blessing must be recited over them.

Or for example:
And if grapefruit or melon is served at the beginning of the meal, one must recite an initial blessing over them, because they are a type of dessert served at the beginning of the meal in order to open the meal with a good taste, and they are not a real part of the meal.

But for us it really is part of the food… I never had it in my mind that this was a different category.

Just to illustrate—it’s obvious that a shawarma laffa is one unit. Even though if you “analyze” it, there is not really, ostensibly, any connection between turkey meat and vegetables and hummus and parsley, etc…. But still it is one unit (and presumably it would never occur to anyone to tell someone eating a shawarma laffa to recite separate blessings on the different things inside it).
So too, in my mind, fruit is not a “separate unit” from a meal. Unless, for example, it’s eating an orange or something an hour after Grace after Meals and the like. Fruit is really something that’s put out at almost every opportunity in the culture I’m used to.

I think it doesn’t matter. As far as I understand, you are not eating it in order to become full. You are having it as dessert within the framework of the meal itself. You eat the fruit for the taste and not for satiety.
Beyond that, if this is not the norm for the public in general, there may also be room for the reasoning that your personal view is nullified by that of everyone else.

With Heaven’s help, in accordance with “he shall bless over the first and over the second”

To Guy — greetings,

There are several grounds to argue in favor of your parents’ custom:

A. Perhaps the fruits eaten during the meal are meant to stimulate the appetite? In Vezot Haberakhah (5769 / 2009, p. 77), it was written that usually sweet fruits are not eaten to stimulate the appetite, but when it is known that they are meant to stimulate the appetite, they are considered “coming because of the meal.”

B. Regarding “stewed fruit” (compote) eaten as a last course, the Chafetz Chaim at the end of his life had the practice of being stringent not to recite a blessing over it. (See his reason there, p. 245.) The author of Vezot Haberakhah writes that fresh fruit is not included in this reasoning, since people are accustomed to eat it all day even outside mealtime; but perhaps your parents are accustomed to eat fruit only during the meal?

D. Whatever is eaten “to soak the food in one’s intestines” is considered “coming because of the meal”; perhaps in your parents’ case the fruit is eaten in order to improve digestion of the food eaten during the meal?

With blessings,
Hanoch Henich Feinshmecker-Palti