to think that all adults should instantly recognise what a lemon looks like?

[Bunnyjo]

Just went to my local cooperative store as I needed a lemon for a dish I was cooking. I take said lemon to the till with a few other items which the checkout assistant begins scanning.

She gets to the lemon and, I shit you not, says to me, "What is this?" I didn't know whether to or but I managed to utter, "Lemon, it's a lemon!"

As I also bought a bottle of wine on a school night! I know that she must have been at least 18!

So, MN, AIBU? Are lemons some exotic rarity that most people have not been exposed to?!

I love all fruit but guavas. There's hardly any juice and it's like chewing sand, evil fruit. Not suprised they made you sick.

Yes those seeds are a bitch if they get stuck in your teeth .
Dd munches through them though.

I have to attend a compulsory lunchtime meeting every Fri, and they put on a sandwich/fruit platter lunch (to stop the rioting). For a while someone kept putting whole lemons on the fruit platter - as they didn't add much decoratively speaking, I wondered if someone a bit daft in catering thought you could just knock one back like a satsuma. TBH the meeting's so boring I did consider giving it a go just to spice things up a bit!

If they're not ripe, it can be like chewing the pith of a lemon with a sharp sour flavour too, but ripe ones are lovely and sweet.

Slack, maybe the caterer used to work at The Cooperative and thinks lemons are indeed satsumas!

I bet someone told the fruit cutter to put a lemon on the platter to keep the bananas and apples from going brown, but they didn't actually cotton on to the fact they had to cut the lemon to get the juice out. . That has to be the reason why someone would do that!

Bunnyjo not convinced, the ripe ones get chucked to the chickens, if DH doesn't eat them. He likes them (weirdo), the chickens usually avoid them too

Maybe co-op should have flashcards. That would make for a patronising training session wouldn't it?

I went to Sainsbury's and bought some Anchor Squirty - DH now thinks his luck is in deluded fool!

Alas, they didn't have any guavas, so I got a couple of mangoes instead. Oh and some gin might have slipped into the trolley too!

BunnyJo, I've just sent you a message.

Replied, IB, and action has been swift Thank you

Quick response from MNHQ. They must be rationing the gin tonight.

They're down to the last lemon

I think they just shove a wedge in the neck of a bottle of Gordons.

I like feijoa but you can't get them here :(

Wintersmith are you from NZ? I looooooooove feijoas. Nobody here bleeding well knows what they are I make do with feijoa vodka and may have a MN nn relating to this, but it's not the same as a tree in the back yard.

Tomand, do you even like Noni fruit, really?

You do learn something every day! Co-op checkout lady learned what a lemon is and I learned that you can get guavas that look like that (the picture BigRedBall posted) I grew up in a country where guavas are in abundance and, to me, they look different and are always pink inside. Apparently this imposter is an 'green apple guava'. I would never have known what that picture was.

I once went to the Co-op, funnily enough, looking for 'silver polish'. I asked a shop assistant and after a very confusing conversation I worked out she thought I meant polish for silver shoes. I went home and went on about it a bit to (then)DH and said I couldn't believe anyone could not know what silver polish was, but he said IWBU. But a lemon?!

My local store has lovely and very helpful staff apart from when they're stocking shelves and ignoring the tills but I have to admit I was taken aback by one of them not knowing what a lemon was!

I wished I had asked her what she thought it was, but I was so shocked I just answered her question. Alas, now I'll never know!

unnaturalmakeup - they had those guava in Mexico too... and purple prickly pears - they were delicious!

Tbh Co-OP is very vanilla when it comes to fruit and veg. The most exotic fruit is probably a lemon or lime...maybe a banana. Never seen a mango, melon, persimmon or pomegranate sold in a co-op.

Well I've learnt the name of those guavas! I always thought all guavas were pink in the middle too, until DH bought the "green apple guavas" from our local Asian shop. They're definitely much nicer when ripe and a bit soft.
I also absolutely love the rubicon guava juice. Heaven.

Surely the correct answer to any fruit based inquiry is, "its a Small off duty Czeckslovakian traffic warden"

Definitely shouldn't put fruit in gin, it has to be a sprig of rosemary and a basil leaf and of course fever tree tonic.
I quite like I think it's called Ophir gin which you serve with a chunk of chili in it occasionally too.

I am baffled that she didn't know what a lemon was!

When I moved to England I popped into the first supermarket I found which was a Waitrose. I spent a good twenty minutes looking for snow peas. Finally a nice Waitrose boy took pity on me and after trying to describe a 'flat pea pod used in stir frys' I discovered the mange tout!
Oh you can add in aubergine, chard, courgette, baking apples (tried to eat one - don't do that) and clementines to the ignorant veg list.

until DH bought the "green apple guavas" from our local Asian shop. They're definitely much nicer when ripe and a bit soft
I think I'm going to have to look out for them and try them.

I also absolutely love the rubicon guava juice. Heaven
Mmm. Me too. The guava juice of my childhood is much thicker than that, and I wasn't that much of a fan then, but I love the rubicon one. It's such a delicate lovely favour. Yum. We used to have tinned guavas in syrup (with custard, as a pudding) too.

Tinned guavas in syrup and ripe conference pears make a beautiful combination in a fruit salad. I don't know why, but they just go together so well.

I have a lemon tree which says on the label that it bears lemons and limes, i.e. limes are merely unripe lemons

DH used to confuse cucumbers and courgettes all the time. Then again he still confuses goats and sheep. He was more of a burger, chips and video games child.

(nectarines are the ones with fuzzy skin, right? Still not 100% sure...)

no. it's peaches. hence the term "peach fuzz".

we have a food identification problem here. I think people have been eating fish fingers, chips and baked beans to the exclusion of all else for too long.