I just learnt that black pepper is NOT made from the dried seeds of bell peppers...

[LylaLee]

I'm really surprised. I wonder what else I think I 'know' which is wrong.

Well popcorn doesn't look like corn either.

I thought they maybe baked the seeds in an oven or something turning them black and round.

And I thought white pepper was when they just left the seeds white and ground them up like that.

There's a logic. I've never heard of or seen a peppercorn plant, but I've always known about pepper. How was I to know 'pepper' isn't made from 'pepper'?

White pepper, which is a little out of fashion, is black peppercorns with the outer layer removed. The white inner part has the heat, the black outer layer has the fragrance.

My general knowledge includes the Channel Tunnel not being made of glass with a view of fish, Billericay and County Durham not being in Ireland, unicorns being mythical, that Al Quaeda and Sinn Féin aren’t individuals who were on the news a lot, yes.

Lol, yes. I've watched about ten videos about peppercorns now. They say black gives a more complex flavour because of the outer plus inner element.

what ! did you really not know pepper was a different thing what about white pepper.? Anyway I'm not sure what capers are I thought they were a green pepper corn 🤔

Tbf about unicorns 😂
Logically there is no reason the animal couldn't exist. I mean, if you describe platypus and unicorn, I would more believe in unicorn being the real one😂

unicorns are 1 of the animals on the Scottish crest so I'm calling real🦄

and are the national animal so...🦄

@SnaccidentsHappen That's me too! Can't stand peppers, in any way shape of form. If anything is cooked alongside them or placed alongside them, I can't eat it. The flavour invades everything. The smell makes me queasy.

But I like paprika. Love the Paprika crisps you get in Europe and cook with it quite a bit.

I've know for a while the connection but I can't get my head around it.

Jesus...

🤣🤣🤣🤣😕
Fair enough

Don't worry, I knew all those things.

But

(1) Channel tunnel: sometimes people believe things as children and then just never reexamine those thoughts. Go to an aquarium and there's likely a 'fish tunnel' thing. A person hears 'channel tunnel', and thinks 'oh, it must be like that aquarium tunnel.' And never revisits the thought. I've worked in an engineering adjacent environment and grew up with news of them digging it so I knew it wasn't a clear tube, but others might not. I mean it's unbelievable that they've laid cable across the Atlantic. Many scientific achievements are unbelievable.

(2) Billericay and County Durham. They both 'sound' Irish. In England place names are not usually called 'county' whatever. In Ireland they are. An easy mistake to make. They are not places where famous battles took place and there's nothing really memorable about them so that people would have heard of them without a connection. They might have thought Durham and County Durham were two different places, like Gillingham.

(3) Terrorist groups as individuals. I can see how someone hears 'Al Quaeda' claimed responsibility, and think 'ok, that's the guy in charge.' It follows the naming convention Al [ Name ]. Not everyone is well educated or well read. They hear every now and again that 'a bad person has done something.' The Yorkshire ripper killed someone again, Sinn Fenn blew something up. Can't catch the bastards.

(4) Unicorns. Deer, Moose etc. Have horns. Narwhals have a single central horn. Lots of things are extinct. I can see how someone might believe they once existed in the way that dragons are analogous to dinosaurs.

I knew all those but who knows what 'unknown unknowns' are lurking?

😀 All of those examples have appeared more than once, some many, many times, on those ‘Things I only just found out’ threads.

I mean, maybe the same couple of posters just keep reappearing under different names and saying the same things down the years, and most of them would be entirely understandable for children, but some of them are a bit mind-blowing for adults…?

Like someone who actually lived in NI thinking Gerry Adams’ nickname was ‘Sinn Féin’ and her husband having to enlighten her, or someone who was old enough to be at university by the time she found out that ‘several’ wasn’t another word for ‘seven times’ (like ‘twice’ for ‘two’).

You really thought it through OP!

For a long time I thought avocado was spelt and pronounced advocado. I also thought capers were little fish like anchovies whenever I saw them on a menu.

Peppers from the Americas. Well, I live in the SE UK corner, I still have both bell peppers and chillies happily growing in a green house. Popcorn doesn't look like corn,of course it does, especially as it doesn't always "pop".

my husband also thought capers were little fish 😄

Isn't that weird? I also thought the same.
I realised a while ago, but I wonder why we thought that?

I've no idea we were only talking about it the other day I had to tell him again they were not little fish 😄

Funneh. But I’m not sure it beats people thinking capers are small fish.

Mrsjayy · Today 08:55

Anyway I'm not sure what capers are I thought they were a green pepper corn

They're flowers.

No idea, how many round green fish do you know of?

But there was an entire thread of posters under the same illusion so you’re not alone.

i’ve just come back from a holiday and in the villa garden there was a beautiful pink peppercorn tree. It looked similar to a weeping willow and was covered in pink peppercorns.

It was Schinus Molle - which I think this is a different genus from the black peppercorn but the pink ones can be eaten and when crushed they smelt the same.

sadly I don’t think it’s compatible with the climate here which is why we don’t see them.

For years I thought a heifer was a pig. People talk about fat heifers, and cows always look bony to me.

There are bits of common knowledge that just escape people.

that Al Quaeda and Sinn Féin aren’t individuals who were on the news a lot

Along a similar vein, I used to (as a child!) think that Houston was a person. As in "Houston, we have a problem" they were telling Mr Houston there was a problem.

And I didn't taste them until about 1992.