# Incredibly common products which the store clerk never heard of **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 23, 2021, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225 "2021-09-23T21:29:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/141 "2021-09-25T18:21:51Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Our supermarket does carry it but it never seems to be in the same place twice, and no one there knows what it is. It is there, but since it takes up exactly two inches of shelf space, it’s nigh-impossible to find. Right, but someone ought to be able to look it up or ask a manager instead of acting like I made it up. But yeah, not an “incredibly common product” as per OP. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/142 "2021-09-25T18:24:52Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Right, but someone ought to be able to look it up or ask a manager instead of acting like I made it up. I agree! But in my store, the manager didn’t know either. Right now, I can’t tell you what aisle it is in. But I do feel the need to make a malt. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/143 "2021-09-25T18:29:19Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Further research: “Cubanelles are also called the **Italian Frying Pepper** What is it with me misreading everything today? First I imagine I see "I might as well have been looking for an Ethiopian palace”, and now I read the above as “Italian **flying** pepper”, which I imagined to be a projectile hurled by an irate Italian _nonna_. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/144 "2021-09-25T18:37:46Z")
Yeah, if anybody asked a stock person around here about courgettes or aubergines and all you would get is a blank look. I know them from seed catalogs, but the average high school student won’t. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/145 "2021-09-25T18:39:12Z")
The first time my husband and I went to New York together, we asked a waiter what “harry-cot vertz” meant. 😳 Ah well, I hope he got a laugh out of it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/146 "2021-09-25T18:44:08Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Are those French terms? I’ve seen them in menus in French restaurants. French origin, but the English still use the French names due to William the Conqueror. Same reason you raise a pig but eat pork (porc) and it’s sheep on the hoof but mutton (mouton) on the table and there are cows in the field but a beef (boeuf) roast on the table. Peasants had words for the animals they raised and the veg they farmed but the French speaking nobles used their own terms and it stuck. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/147 "2021-09-25T18:52:26Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Are those French terms? I intend to create an role-playing game character named Aubergine Courgette someday. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/148 "2021-09-25T18:53:35Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > Maybe your co-workers call them vegetable marrows? In England (and possibly other places) “courgettes” are summer squash like zucchini. “Marrows” are winter squash like pumpkins. Some here will remember that Hercule Poirot always said his retirement career was going to be to grow vegetable marrows. ---
**Author:** ![JaneDoe42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/janedoe42/32/14104_2.png) [@JaneDoe42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JaneDoe42)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/149 "2021-09-25T19:15:28Z")
And he was doomed to failure because Marrows are a fruit. A couple of weeks ago I asked a young Home Depot clerk where the loctite was. He had no idea what it was, but after I explained he thought it sounded like pretty useful stuff. He found a manager who led us to the paint aisle. Rennet has been around forever. I’ve not yet been in a grocery store that doesn’t have rennet in some form or another. I’ve also never been in a grocery store where the clerks know what it is or where its located. Now that folks are making yogurt and such, that might change. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/150 "2021-09-25T19:43:18Z")
Oh, I haven’t had any but Walmart sells them here (New Hampshire). They definitely do not call them long johns, though: If I ordered some to be delivered to the house, they’d call them “[Maple or Chocolate Iced Fluff Filled Bars](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Freshness-Guaranteed-Maple-or-Chocolate-Iced-Fluff-Filled-Bars-19oz-6CT/265290974?fulfillmentIntent=Pickup)”. Long johns are over in the underwear aisles. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/151 "2021-09-25T19:44:36Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Despite my general cluelessness about tools while I was working in my dad’s hardware store, I did, in fact, know what cotter pins were, thanks to tinkering around with my wagon and my bicycle as a kid. Yeah! That’s where I learned what a cotter pin was… on our Radio Flyer wagon when I was probably five. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/152 "2021-09-25T19:47:30Z")
> [@carrps](#): > > Yeah! That’s where I learned what a cotter pin was… on our Radio Flyer wagon when I was probably five. Two obscure points of fact: Radio Flyer wagons can still be bought, but they’re surprisingly expensive. And, they make cotter pins specifically for them! ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/153 "2021-09-25T19:49:43Z")
I was being tongue in cheek, of course, but darned if I wasn’t thinking of Hercule Poirot, you’re right! If the teenagers at the market would only think for a minute, they’d realize that eggplants are aubergine-_colored_ and make the connection that way. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/154 "2021-09-25T19:52:59Z")
> [@actualliberalnotoneofthose](#): > > I remember when Obama popularized arugula as an elitist vegetable. I feed it to my rabbits. It’s also popular as pet food with iguana and tortoise owners. > [@Senegoid](#): > > What, nobody mentioned matzoh yet (however one might spell that)? You got the spelling right. Sometimes “Jewish crackers” works. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > BTW, jalapenos turn red when they’re ripe. Yes, but the store I work at almost never has red jalepeños, just the green ones. A friend of mine grew some this year and did let them ripen all the way. I’m having fun with beans-and-burritos with them and my conure is ecstatic. > [@kayaker](#): > > The grocery store we shop at categorizes bulk peppers as “miscellaneous hot peppers” all the same price per pound. Makes it easy. Ours are priced that way - one price for bell peppers, everything else a different but same price - but the inventory people still have fits over it. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > At the checkout counter, sure. When you’re shopping for a recipe, not so much. Those of us at the registers ringing up customers are supposed to know our peppers so we can punch in the correct code. Truth is, almost no one knows them so we just guess. Like I said, inventory keeps having fits over it. > [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I’m kinda vague on exactly what sort of establishment Meijers is, so I ask if you were looking for underwear or donuts. Meijers is a big box store combining groceries, pharmacy, clothing, seasonal, craft, home decor, toys, pets, and general hardware. Slightly more upscale than Walmart, sort of Target level. > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > Meijer is a Midwestern grocery store chain which also stocks other items (including clothing), so it’s entirely possible that they would have both! Yes, they do. Although the clothing longjohns are seasonal so not all year round (they do have the donut ones all year). > [@E-DUB](#): > > Meijers used to call itself “Meijers Thrifty Acres” and were HUGE. I mean, you could outfit a safari at that place (although I don’t think they sell guns anymore) Not firearm guns, just the “air rifle” and BB types. Can still get firearm ammo, though. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/155 "2021-09-25T19:55:54Z")
> [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > > [@Broomstick](#): > > > > “courgette” > > Maybe your co-workers call them vegetable marrows? Nope. Just zucchinis out in these parts. Ah, the American Midwest and it’s (lack of) culinary sophistication… > [@Ruken](#): > > Rhubarb is a common grocery checkout stumper. But while it’s been in every grocery I’ve used regularly, I doubt many people buy it so I’m not sure it qualifies as “incredibly common”. Funny - around here everyone seems to know it, recognize it, and buy it in season… except of course for those for whom any raw vegetable is a new wonder. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/156 "2021-09-25T19:59:16Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > > [@Broomstick](#): > > > > Then we have folks from abroad who will call a zucchini a “courgette” (which, I believe, is the more common term in Europe) or an eggplant an “aubergine” > > Are those French terms? I’ve seen them in menus in French restaurants. Yep. I presume the English got the terms from the French. America, on the other hand, I suspect got “zucchini” from the Italians. I have no idea of the origin of “eggplant”. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/157 "2021-09-25T20:01:25Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > The first time my husband and I went to New York together, we asked a waiter what “harry-cot vertz” meant. 😳 > Ah well, I hope he got a laugh out of it anyway. I would explain it this way: “Ah, madame, zee ‘harry-cot vertz’, it iz zee ting what you use to make zee casserole de haricots verts, or, how you say, ze casserole of the green bean, yes? Zee casserole made with zee haricots verts, and zee soupe aux champignons a la Campbell avec oignons frits a la French’s.” Kind of a hijack to this thread, but I had my own interesting first-time experience in New York as a kid in either my late teens or, at most, early 20s. We dropped into an ordinary sort of restaurant for lunch, and were served by one of the most obnoxious waiters I’ve ever encountered either before or since. When it was time to leave I decided that “no tip” would be appropriate. After counting out the exact change in bills and coins, we left. The fun part was that I had accidentally left a penny beside my plate. I was too naive to have had any forethought or even knowledge that leaving one cent as a tip was a rather New York-ish version of the ultimate insult to a waiter. As we were leaving, he found the money and the “tip”. This waiter, who was pretty rotund, was almost literally hopping with fury, and literally did throw the penny at us as we were heading out the door. I’m sure he never suspected that it was unintentional, but better still, that his comical fury totally made my day! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/158 "2021-09-25T20:14:03Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > It’s a style of doughnut – rather than being a circle, they’re rectangular. In every doughnut shop where I’ve ever seen them, they are invariably maple-flavored and called “maple bars”. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/159 "2021-09-25T20:22:37Z")
This article [https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2021/08/09/second-helpings-at-the-applebees-salad-bar/](https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2021/08/09/second-helpings-at-the-applebees-salad-bar/) talks about the latest food to be declared “elitist” - capicola/gabbagol ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2021, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225/160 "2021-09-25T20:40:28Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Well, I’ve never seen, used, nor heard the names of grass whips and sling blades until reading this thread. I have used a hoe with a somewhat similar design, but it was used by running the blade just below the surface of the ground, cutting off the tops of weeds. Do you mean a [swan hoe](https://www.earthtools.com/garden-tools-dewit/dewit-hoes/)? As you say, that’s not used in at all the same motion as a grass whip. And the angle of the blade to the handle is different. – I had never heard of a sling blade. – And Discourse has given me an award for popular link, for the link to pictures of grass whips. This is mildly interesting but also a bit confounding, because I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve gotten that award, and I’ve certainly posted links to things I thought were a lot more important to look at than pictures of grass whips. – Dried mushrooms I have both seen and used. I’m not sure whether all the local groceries carry them, but some do. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > It’s practically impossible to get a handle on all the peppers there are. I watch a lot of cooking shows, and the TV chef will say, “Chop up a chili pepper,” and won’t specify what kind. There are a ZILLION different kinds! Yes, indeed. I’ve had people at farmers’ market ask me to put a name to a pepper they had somewhere, based on a vague description. Sorry, no can do. It’s made worse by the fact that there are peppers that look a whole lot like each other but have entirely different flavors. On a very basic level, there are hot peppers that look just like common sweets, and vice versa. > [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Rachael Ray used to talk about “Italian frying peppers” that her mom used in upstate New York. I could never find anything by that name around here. Did she mean _cubanelles_ ? I dunno. I’ve seen varieties described as Italian frying peppers in seed catalogs; if you’re curious, I’ll try to hunt up a reference. Though whether that’s what Rachael Ray meant might be another question. I had a customer one year ask me for Italian eggplant, and I’ve never been able to figure out just what she meant; though apparently it was neither the standard USA roughly bell-shaped type, nor the long thin ones often known at least around here as Asian eggplant, nor the somewhat inbetween-shape white or striped varieties, because I had all of those and she wanted something else. > [@Mighty\_Mouse](#): > > I lived in New York at the time and was in OKC for two weeks and decided not to fly back for the weekend. I was looking for a Jewish deli. This was 1994, and at the time, I might as well have been looking for an Ethiopian place. I don’t remember where I was, though I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Oklahoma and that it was somewhere that I did expect to have a Jewish deli, but I remember once asking for one and being directed to a place that did indeed have bagels. On which, in addition to other possible toppings, you could order ham. I wasn’t surprised to find that they weren’t my idea of good bagels, either: right shape, wrong texture. > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Now suet, that’s a modern mystery. I have a chili recipe that wants suet but no one carries it. You could try looking for bird feed; but it’s probably not intended for human consumption, and may not have been handled in a fashion making it safe for humans to eat. Around here, I’d try a Mennonite store (also for the lard); but while a lot more places have such than used to (here, for instance) there are still a lot of places where I expect asking for one would get you the same blank look that asking for the lard did. > [@Briny\_Deep](#): > > If the teenagers at the market would only think for a minute, they’d realize that eggplants are aubergine- _colored_ and make the connection that way. Do they recognize aubergine as a color name? I don’t think the word’s in common use that way either; at least around here. And for people puzzled as to why a fruit/vegetable they probably think of as purple gets called “eggplant”: they come in all sorts of colors and shapes, including small roundish white ones. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/incredibly-common-products-which-the-store-clerk-never-heard-of/951225.md?page=9)