I knew what it was, but I tend to watch a lot of cooking programs 
I would never have guessed that rocket meant arugula.
I learned about rocket from reading menus in the UK.
Born in the US (Chicago) and, yes, it means “arugula.” I didn’t realize it was such an obscure word. I typically hear “arugula” these days, but occasionally “rocket” as well.
I just checked my old Joy of Cooking, and it’s weird. It has “red leaf chickory” and “arugula” listed as the same thing. No listing for “rocket,” but there is one for “roquette.” The description of “roquette” sounds like it should be “arugula.” The description of “arugula” as an Italian salad green is correct, but it’s not the same thing as “red leaf chickory,” which is also known as “raddichio.”
Confusing.
Me too, though I’d eaten it. I wondered what arugula was, and when I found out, “oh, that stuff.” Never heard it called “rocket”.
For example, here’s a menu of Chicago restaurant Tuscany. If you look at the “Fiorentina” under “Pizze e Panini,” you’ll see “rocket salad” as one of the ingredients. Oddly enough, “arugula” is also used on the menu, as “baby arugula” under the “Vitella Milanese” in the “Secondi” section of the menu.
shrug
It wouldn’t be the first time a word took me by surprise. I’m still not sure crudite isn’t a gigantic practical joke the rest of the world made up a few years ago just to mess with me.
Yeah, I always knew those as “vegetable platters” growing up. I will very occasionally hear crudite these days, but typically it’s still “vegetable platter,” at least in my circles. I vaguely remember when I first heard the term, I was thinking of some sort of crostini-type toasted thing. I assume I was conflating the concepts of “croutons” and “canapés” into “crudités.”
I never encountered this term before moving to Thailand, where (thanks to non-USAnian influence) many Western restaurants list rocket as a salad ingredient and pizza topping. (The latter is pretty good, actually.)
Yes. I learned it from watching the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares several years ago.
I knew it from Gordon Ramsey on BBC America, he kept talking about rocket salad, so I looked it up(and was disappointed)
I call it arugula, but I read enough cookbooks and watch enough British cooking series that I know what rocket is.
Australia: we call it rocket and I’m not familiar with the other term for it. Oddly enough, we don’t use the words “courgette” or “aubergine”; we say “zucchini” and “eggplant”.
I first saw it in the UK on the labels for those pre-made sandwiches in the triangular packaging from supermarkets (for ex., tuna, sweet corn, and rocket). I figured it was some kind of lettuce right away, and discovered exactly what kind when I bought one.
I learned it living here in Japan. That’s what it’s called here.
Springfield, Illinois. Never heard of it before this thread.
Looking through this thread, the term “rocket salad” does start to sound familiar. But I still don’t think I ever heard it in the US, just since coming over here. And anyway, just calling it a “rocket,” no, I’m sure I never heard that.
I have run across it online somewhere, but didn’t remember until I read the answer. (I hardly ever hear arugula mentioned, either.)
“Arugula” sounds completely unfamiliar, but I must have heard it at least in that Steve Martin movie mentioned upthread.
That was the other thing I noticed looking up the concept online. It was invariably called “salad rocket” or otherwise delineated. In fact, when I googled “rocket leafy green”, I originally got Diplotaxis tenuifolia, a completely different plant called “wall rocket.”
Then again, this game put up a picture of potato wedges but just called them wedges. So that sort of thing seems to be de rigor.