Don’t take it personally; my remark wasn’t aimed at you. I’m in the USA, and parsnips aren’t as common here. I was simply using that as code for “something an American teenager wouldn’t have heard of.” I probably should have gone with something else, but I was too lazy to think of anything.
My dad had one of those, but I never saw him using it and didn’t know it had a name. I’ve also never heard the phrase “grass whip” before today, but when I clicked on thorny_locust’s link I immediately thought, “Oh, those things!”
There is also the possibility that someone under the age of, say, 18, has never seen a vegetable in its original form, including potatoes. French fries, yes. Chips/crisps, yes. But a whole potato before it’s been cut up and fried? Maybe not. That goes for other vegetables, too.
OK, but I was really pretty specific that I expected people where I live to know that term. I bet if I’d talked about something you’d done and characterised it as something rude customers do, you’d think it was, well, about you.
Yes, I considered that. Someone under 18 might not know what any vegetable looked like, and some over 18 might not either. Though when you work in a supermarket, or are managing a supermarket, you probably do know the names and appearances of common vegetables sold in your store.
These were all adults (I said “man,” referred to one of them being a manager, then later qualified that they weren’t kids), and they literally didn’t know the word.
I’ve been taking peeled kohlrabi to work for a post-lunch snack and have had cashiers ask what it was. (Though to be honest, identifying produce does not look easy and I’m glad I’m not a cashier. As it is, I use self-checkout and try to memorize the PLU code for any fruit or vegetable items I’m buying.)
In many stores they are put on a tiny end cap somewhere.
I don’t like the slushy version of a margarita and I’ve had good success with ordering a “rocks margarita,” for some reason that tracks with the average bartender.
I was once in a bar so fucking backward that when I asked for an Irish coffee they pulled a bottle of fucking Bailey’s off the shelf and I said, no, I want a coffee with IRISH WHISKY in it and they literally DID NOT HAVE ANY in the entire bar, not even that swill Jameson’s. I was extremely disappoint and ordered a beer in a bottle because the gods only know what those backward fucks would do trying to draw a pint from a tap.
Oh, when it comes to root vegetables, it’s a coin toss if the cashier knows the difference between or what one of these is: kohlrabi, parsnip, parsley root, jicama, celery root (celeriac), turnip, rutabaga. And then there’s cassava/manioc/yuca, African yams, etc. Peppers can also get confused quite a bit: anaheim vs banana pepper vs cubanelle; fresnos and jalapenos are often mixed up if the jalapenos are red (we get red jalapenos here in season.) It can get quite confusing unless you use these vegetables regularly (which, for a culture that uses parsnips commonly, it is odd not to know.)
And how can they possibly tell if I’m buying conventional Honeycrisp apples or organic Honeycrisp apples, assuming of course that they’ve figured out that these are Honeycrisp apples. Nectarines and peaches can sometimes be difficult to distinguish if you’re not careful. It’s particularly difficult if the produce is in one of those thin, slightly translucent plastic bags.
Stuff like that around here they usually put a sticker on. With the other loose vegetables I mentioned, those are usually left stickerless, since there’s no organic equivalent being sold, and they’re reasonably easy to tell apart by sight if you have familiarity with them (as opposed to the myriad apples which are difficult, IMHO, minus a few obvious types. It all depends on what you stock and how different they are.)
So that’s what that is! I own one, but I never knew it was called a “grass whip.”
I’ve seen those, but I’ve never heard the term “grass whip,” either. I don’t work at a hardware/gardening store, though. No idea if that’s the name they’re known as around here or if there’s another term.
My dad had one of those when I was growing up. I’m pretty sure we didn’t call it a grass whip, but now I can’t remember what we actually did call it. Actually, I think maybe none of us knew what it was called so we just called it something like “that thing you swing to cut grass with”.
Me too. I was very familiar with fresh mushroom, and the canned variety, but this thread was the first I’d heard of dried mushrooms.
Here it depends on the store and clientele. Chinese/Asian store? Yep, you’ll find dried shiitake, oyster, wood ear/cloud ear, etc. Eastern European? Porcini, bay boletus, chanterelle, and some others I forget. I think the Italian groceries may have the dried porcinis as well, which you can often find in the upscale supermarkets, as well. The general grocery stores usually will not stock them unless they service an area with a significant population of one of the above groups. There are a number of local chains whose offerings very much vary by the make-up of the area they serve.
Every once in a great while, I get a craving for Tamales in a can. Last time I went to the local supermarket and asked for them I was told, ‘Tamales do not come in cans!’
I found them two isles over.
Probably, depending on how long ago it was. I recall people using phrases like “optical drives” in the 1980s when the technology was new, but I haven’t heard that terminology in a very long time.
I remember a library director who insisted on calling music CDs “optical discs,” to the befuddlement of the staff. That was around 1985.
My family didn’t call it anything. They just handed it to you and told you to clear the outhouse path.
Also, I’ve have dried mushrooms a few times but you couldn’t get those at the grocery store and they weren’t consumed for gastronomic reasons.
Same here. Is a ‘thumb drive’ a specialised type of flash drive?