So, nobody in this family when they had rumspringa went out and ate pizza?
It's not like I got a detailed life history from these people, but if you ever get the chance, the level of culture shock can be striking. The biggest event of my time there was the neighbor's horse that was used to drive the plows sustaining an enormous gash on its front right leg. That effectively stopped work as people rushed to try and stitch it up. With no machinery, they're entirely reliant on horses to accomplish any meaningful field work, so a serious injury to one can severely impact yield.
They are prepared for that, though. Thanks to not making much in the way of purchases of virtually anything from the outside world, resources only flow in so they have a surplus of everything they need to last years if they need to hunker down. Any form of community wealth is entirely kept in the community, so there were apparently some fairly vast intergenerational savings built up.
So I don't know if the concern was really that being down a plow was going to have any material impact on anyone's ability to eat, but it was dramatic nonetheless. I didn't ask, but I got the impression the guy driving the plow was as distraught as he was because he considered the horse a friend. He seemed distressed by the amount of pain it was in.
If you feel astonished that someone is unfamiliar with something, that is an emotion best kept to yourself. I have learned this the hard way when people reacted poorly to my own expressions of astonishment.
Consider how someone might feel after hearing you say something like this:
"What??? You've never heard of tiramisu???"
(I'm not saying that's how you put it, just giving an example of an astonished reaction.)
Instead, meet them where they are and explain without judgment the unfamiliar term:
"Oh, tiramisu is a delicious Italian dessert. It's made with ladyfinger cookies, mascarpone, and coffee. Mascarpone is a soft creamy Italian cheese, often used in desserts, sometimes in savory dishes too. Would you like me to send you a tiramisu recipe? You will be in for a real treat!"
EDIT: Which, I see now, also quotes the xkcd strip.
As the article says, regardless of how you feel internally, choose the external action that is likely to give a happy interaction rather than an unhappy one.
As for the animals, yes, it's pretty normal to bond with them and care about them, especially something like a horse.
It's definitely a completely different culture, though, no doubts about that.
I think you're expecting too much from others. I didn't grow up Amish, and although I did grow up in a non-assimilated insular religious community I've been living in Western secular society for about 10 years now.
The only Italian foods I can think of are pasta (I can name spaghetti and macaroni and lasagna and that's it) and pizza, which I knew of since childhood. Lately I've seen the word tiramisu around but I have no idea what it is. I think I saw it on a cake in a bakery and I assumed it was pretentious for chocolate but actually I don't know. I certainly didn't know it was Italian.
A bit more on topic, I'd generally agree that it's not so common as to be universal. I don't think I'd heard the word in any way that registered as significant before my mid-20s, and I'm certain I never tried it until my late 20s or early 30s. I grew up in the suburbs around Pittsburgh, PA with plenty of passable Italian restaurants -- but tiramisu simply wasn't a dessert people in my family ordered.
HN tip: The reply link on new comments in a thread may not appear immediately. I think this is a measure to discourage heated back-and-forth replies.
But you can always click the "n minutes ago" link to open the individual comment and reply there.