@Ironclad Rather than looking smart its more about solving a problem. Knowledge has virtually nothing to do with smarts to begin with despite the common misconception that knowing a lot means your smart.
Problems like this are the most likely to come across when adventuring through a world in early stages of development. Many cultures would figure it out themselves but what we have today is the sum total of all that knowlege. The blanks are all filled in and everyone has access to the knowledge.
Even today do you know what a serious yet common health issue is for people in so called 1st world countries? Constipation. Thanks to diet, lack of understanding/proper education on the subject of health and foods and other unreasonable factors people are getting constipated to the point of critical mass. I myself had serious issues and had to use movicol to fix the immediate issues and adjust my diet to fix the problem. It was as simple as not understanding how fiber works. It was literally never brought up and hence no one considered it.
The answer was just to have a high fiber cereal every morning. At first the damage meant i needed to be very careful but after awhile it just became normal. You should check your food for fiber levels. Its shocking how much difference there is between similar products. I settled on a tasty cereal with apple and sultana bits because not only was it good but it was 18% fiber. Thats about as much as straight bran and it tasted like other cereals which boasted high fiber and has a mere 7 or 10%.
Anyway long story short stuff like this is to be expected and being from another place means he likely has such basic knowledge which fills gaps in the common populaces.