I searched, and found this which led to this, and learned a bit.
From the above anecdotal evidence, it seems there really is a great divide between those who enjoy cilantro, and those who can’t deal with it.
Me, I hate the stuff. Which sucks, cause when I go get some yummy tacos jaliscos, I have to ask for them sin cilantro y con mucho onions. (South Tejas, ya know) I like the strong savory flavors, the taste thing known as umami now, and I can’t even get near food that’s been made with that dammed leafy green shit. It really tases to me like licking out the inside of a dusty bottle of asprin. No fun at all.
I love it. But I used to have a chemist for a neighbour and she actually went into a scientific explanation about some chemical that is in cilantro that works in a way with a person’s sense of taste/smell so that it can taste like soap, depending on the person’s own chemical balance. I wish I could remember the exact conversation, because it was quite interesting, but this was many years ago.
I must be that rare person who kind of likes, kind of doesn’t like cilantro.
I don’t much like the taste, but I know that it’s an integral part of some foods that I find absolutely delicious, like burritos of carne al pastor with grilled onions and cilantro.
On the other hand, I think most women’s perfumes smell like soap and they should stop wearing it.
Cilantro (fresh, please) is a must in some dishes, such as my world famous pico de gallo and/or homemade guacamole. But it has to be in manageable amounts. Some recipes call for 1/4 cup of the stuff, which I think is overpowering. The spice should complement the meat/vegetable, not compete with it.
I’ll chime in on the ‘can’t stand it’ side. I was married to a woman from Belize for 5 years and while she is a wonderful cook, I cringed whenever she made chicken soup with cilantro in it. It tastes like nasty medicine to me. Everyone else in my family loved it though. I thought I was the only freak!
Used to be I couldn’t stand it - it definitely tasted like soap to me. Now, I can still see that connection, but it isn’t strong and off-putting to me. I too lerves me some homemade salsa/pico de gallo and guacamole, and I use generous amounts of cilantro.
So my question is, is it genetic, and I’ve just developed a taste for it like you can for beer, say? Or is it a more complex chemical state that may shift with age and other factors, so that it actually tastes less soapy than it used to?
Yes, but the problem for people such as myself is that any cilantro at all, no matter how minute an amount, makes the whole thing taste like soap. (more specifically, to me it’s like biting into a bar of Irish Spring, except when it tastes even worse). “Fresh” does nothing to mitigate this horror.
Absolutely. My local Mongolian BBQ place offers a delicious Thai sauce…but for some unknown reason they throw liberal amounts of cilantro in it. If it’s quiet at the restaurant I’ll spend a few minutes trying to slip out the sauce without picking up the cilantro, but if it’s busy I have to pass. Even when I’m careful about it, if a fragment of a leaf gets into the food I’ll taste it when I come across it.
People who like cilantro usually go ‘it’s just a little piece, it can’t be that bad’ at this point, but it’s really about as jarring as biting down on a fragment of bone or dirt and the unpleasantness stays around longer.
That was the point as I understand it, to make spoiled meat palatable.
I have also been given to understand on an equally boring level, that some Asian Indian women use it as a perfume.
One thing I’ve learned about cilantro is people who are allergic to bee stings don’t make that big a deal about it. People who are allergic to peanuts don’t make that big a deal about it. People who are allergic to seafood don’t make that big a deal about it. People who are diabetic don’t make that big a deal about it. People who are vegetarian don’t make that big a deal about it. People who don’t like cilantro act like the merest stray cilantro molecule will make them start convulsing, frothing at the mouth and bleed out like a hyper case of some mutant strain of ebola and necrotizing fasciitis.
The husband isn’t crazy about it, but he’s more the type of guy who doesn’t like too many little green bits in his food.
Anyone ever try Culantro?
It is, for me, a sort of prickly little cousin of cilantro. A few little snips of it can do nice things to salsa–salmon, too.
Got a bigger brush there? I think you missed former alcoholics who don’t make a big deal about drinking, people who are keeping kosher not making a big deal about being served a Canadian Bacon pizza for lunch, and people on a diet not making a big deal about food pushers.
Truth be told, there are people in all the aforementioned groups who make a big deal about their diets. And people who know how to behave.
I really like it, but I definitely taste the soap thing. It’s a good soap taste, though. I think it tastes good the way some soap smells very good, or like the smell of hanging up clean laundry on the clothesline in the backyard on a warm, lush, summer day. I can understand why people might not like it.