You are not an outsider. You’re family like everyone else. I’m the odd uncle many are not quite sure what to do with. grin
I’m going to take your question as directed individually as opposed to “what do Americans find exotic.”
For me, if I don’t know what to do with something it is exotic. If I don’t even know what it is, it is really exotic. Rutabagas were once exotic to me. I learned to make Branston pickle and from there branched out to other things. No longer exotic. Kohlrabi was once very exotic to me but it showed up in a CSA box (community supported agriculture where we pay for an annual subscription for a weekly box of vegetables and get what we get) and is no longer exotic.
Okra is exotic for me because try as I may I still despise the stuff.
For the last fifteen years I’ve lived in Annapolis MD. Other than mainstream US foods access to less commonly used food items is pretty well limited to Amazon which gets quite expensive. It’s an hour and a half each way to an Asian market. We have a couple of places for Hispanic food but they have limited selection and aren’t very good; an hour each way to better markets with parking and security issues. Much of my exploration is when away from home on business trips.
A secondary definition of exotic for me is something labor intensive with minimal reward, like using a hollowed out pineapple with two straws for a drink. I’m sure there is a tool for hollowing out the pineapple without wasting the flesh that would make it less exotic.
