I’m 55, and clementine is a new one on me. I thought you were talking about cookies or something similar. I had to look it up to learn that it is a variety of orange. The only Clementine I had previously been familiar with was the song “Oh, My Darling Clementine.” Of course, if I had seen them, I would have recognized them as mandarin oranges. I just never knew them by that name.
I was a high school physics teacher, and was going through a problem where a cherry pit had been thrown out of a car window. One student pipes up half way through solving the problem, “What is a cherry pit, anyway?”
I polled that class and the rest of my classes that day… not a SINGLE student knew what a cherry pit was.
Furthermore, one of my brighter students reasoned out semantically that a cherry pit was a hole where cherry trees were planted. Another student pointed out that you couldn’t throw a hole in the ground out the window of a car.
Never, EVER underestimate what people don’t know.
I even had a few students argue with me that cherries even had seeds inside them.
Sorry! They’re doing very well now 
And although it was sad, it was actually really happy to be able to teach them about food, and tell them that yes, breakfast happens every day!! They’re suitably fattened up now, doing well in school, happy, healthy, beautiful kids.
mangetout is a type of pea? I thought it was “man get out”
I wish my grocery stores did that. I either have to waste celery, plan a very celery-heavy set of meals for the week, or buy chopped celery from the salad bar at a huge markup.
More Italians than Frenchfolk in Melbourne 
In the Caribbean, the first time I saw stuffed christophine on a menu I thought it was an animal. My gf had to explain that it is a local term for chayote, a type of gourd. Now it is a favorite of mine.
Zucchini is the American term for it as well.
I like jicama, but typically eat it raw, julienned in some kind of salad. Not sure I’d like it in the way you described.
We pronounce it Clementeen in England and it’s not quite the same as a Mandarin.
No better thread to discover that in!
Wasabi wasabi, everyone was going on about it. When I finally tasted it I exclaimed - but this is horseradish! Not quite the same I know but I still felt ripped off!
The real stuff is fairly distinct from horseradish - not as “hot”, different flavor - but the vast majority of the wasabi most places will have is tinted horseradish.
A few years ago, someone had brought some sweets in to the office to share, and some of them were ginger-flavoured. After looking at them doubtfully for a while, one of my co-workers asked me, “What does ginger taste like?”
I still can’t quite imagine how anyone could reach their mid-twenties in the UK without ever tasting ginger.
I know a 20-year-old who didn’t recognize a mix of peppers and onions (grilled for fajitas). He was raised and homeschooled, if you can call it that, by a strange little woman who identified corn as a fruit and, at 30, didn’t know how to scramble an egg. I think she still doesn’t know how to cook anything and has never offered him anything but fast food or packaged reheated stuff from the store.
He was fascinated by my husband’s massive garden. I’m not sure he knew that food could grow in the dirt.
It’s a mad world.
I’ll bet you have some foreign word for Belgian Endive also.
Everybody falls the first time.
Some people enjoy being intentionally vague and dense with the help just to being in a momentary position of superiority. “Sweetie, you get paid to puzzle out my order in whatever terms I choose to phrase it. And isn’t it cute that I’m a silly old dear who doesn’t realize those are carrots and cucumbers? Why, I’m far too well-off to do my own cooking anymore; I can hardly be bothered to identify raw ingredients.”
I was helping set up a fruit and vegetable bar at an elementary school. We had raw jicama and one little boy was being so debonaire in explaining to all his friends who didn’t know what it was: “That’s Jickama… Didn’t you ever eat Jickama?” He knew his veg. but needed to work on his Spanish accent.
naw - it’s an SDMB poster!
I’d be high fiveing him and offering him first crack at the cherry tomatoes!
Yes, lots of my daughter’s friends don’t recognize whole vegetables. They know them only cut up and/or cooked. I’m not sure if it’s because their parents buy everything prepared, or if they’re not allowed in the kitchen while dinner is being made.
I got a kick out of one of ‘em at a party, who, seeing me take a couple of regular ol’ carrots out of the fridge to cut into carrot sticks, exclaimed, “Holy cow!” (yes, really, that’s how she talks; she’s adorable) “That’s the biggest baby carrot I’ve ever SEEN!!!” 
Is this where I brag about how last night my three year old and one year old ate steak, kale, and quinoa for dinner? My three year olds favorite food is edamame, well that or goldfish crackers, you can’t win 'em all.