It is often pointed out that many children today lack life experience. Therefore, we conducted a questionnaire survey with 79 Grade 5 elementary school children (38 boys and 41 girls) about the names of 15 basic culinary knife cuts and 31 cooking utensils that are thought to be used in the kitchen on a daily basis. The average percentage of correct answers for questions on culinary knife cuts was 7% higher among girls than boys. There were no significant differences between the genders for individual knife cuts. The knife cuts with a high percentage of correct answers were mijingiri (fine chopping), ichogiri (quarter slicing), sengiri (julienning or ‘shoe strong’), wagiri (round slicing) and hangetsugiri (half-circle slicing). On average, girls scored approximately 8% higher than boys on the questions about cooking utensils. Significant differences between boys and girls were found for four utensils, whisk, measuring cup, measuring spoon and ladle. Both boys and girls scored highly on questions about basic utensils such as knife, frying pan, chopping board, bowl, kettle and boiling pot, reflecting the rate of ownership and frequency of use of these items.