I knew before i was allergic. DH made it forbid in grad school.
Also--I didn't type this yesterday, but the US (maybe Canada, too, I don't know) really is a melting pot in terms of food. I think it's because we have everyone here. When DH and I were in grad school in Switzerland (with 50 students from 39 countries all over the world). We had cultural night on Fridays where a continent would cook and share customs. The three US students were put with the student from Ecuador and Brazil--we are one continent to the rest of the world. No problem--we made tortillas and did food that they ate that we also ate.
But on Europe night, the Germans had never heard if the Brits' food--bread pudding. Seriously. They lived 10 hours away from each other by car/boat and had not known this yummy food. We North Americans wee incredulous.
My takeaway: it wouldn't surprise me if the South African man really weren't familiar with hummus much--at least not as enough to know what it contained.