Cilantro does not taste like soap. You guys are totally imagining things. Cilantro is delicious.
The first few times I had it – must have been in high school – it did have a rather unpleasant, bitter “soapiness” to it. I just remember not liking the salsa at the local taqueria at all, and that was because of the cilantro (this is when the neighborhood starting changing from Polish to Mexican and I was exploring some of the new culinary options.) However, not liking the taste of something never really stopped me from eating it before, so I just kept eating the salsa every time I went to that tacqueria. Eventually, I just stopped noticing (or maybe even stopped tasting) the soapy or bitter taste. It simply tastes “green” and “fresh” to me now, with a touch of bitter. One of my favorite herbs.
Same thing happened to me with epazote. First few times I had it, it was offensive. Eventually, I grew to love it, too.
I can taste that vaguely soapy-taste with cilantro, but that’s just what cilantro tastes like and I like it. I use a whole bunch of it in each batch of salsa I make, which my wife and I go through in a week or two.
I agree with pulykamell - I think everyone tastes it but some just haven’t acquired the taste for it.
I wouldn’t necessarily quite go that far, but I am curious whether cultures where cilantro usage is the norm, there are similar amounts of cilantro-haters and/or whether that taste is characterized as “soapy”. This would not prove or disprove a genetic link, but it’d be an interesting number to see.
Cilantro and epizote both have a very strong flavor for me. A little goes a long way in any dish, as they dominate other flavors. No soapy flavor though, so perhaps I’m in the minority.
Hmm…Johnny L.A. might be on to something with the tongue rolling. I also cannot roll my tongue into a tube, and love cilantro.
Do all you soap tasters have the ability to curl your tongue into a tube?
When I first moved out west 15 years ago, every time I would have chips and salsa, I would think that somebody didn’t rinse out the salsa bowl the last time it was washed, so apparently cilantro tastes like dish soap to me. But, I have gotten used to it over the years, and now it doesn’t really taste like soap to me anymore.
Nope. Can’t roll my tongue, cilantro tastes like soap.
To me it’s more dish detergent + dill + lavender. Really biting and sharp.
I can curl my tongue into a tube, and I LOVES me some cilantro.
How about a celery/cilantro link? As I said, I love cilantro… but celery, to me, is the taste equivalent of someone dragging their fingernails down a chalkboard.
I have been in and around Colombia for the past 25 years and have always hated food with cilantro in it. But, everyone that I know here loves cilantro. Nobody understands why I don’t like it. But, it doesn’t taste like soap. Just a flavor that I don’t like…period!
I taste soap and can curl my tongue.
I love it, will eat it at any opportunity, and can not only curl my tongue into a tube or a shamrock, but can also turn it upside down.
Tongue roller here who thinks it tastes like soap. Neither of my brothers can roll their tongues and they like cilantro. However, they both can wiggle their ears while I cannot. Someone should get a grant to study this…
For shame, Sir, for shame!
Be more specific about how it tastes like soap? If you’ve ever been in a kitchen where someone forgot to drain dishwater before leaving for a day or two, it tastes exactly like that smells–a cross between used detergent and rot. Ick.
I can roll my tongue and I also hate me some celery. Don’t think a hell of a lot of parsley, either, though it’s not actually offensive. It just tastes like grass.
What do you mean “more specific?” Take a bar of Irish Spring and lick it. That is what cilantro tastes like the the tongue roller that is me.
Now be more specific about what cilantro tastes like to you.
My fiancee likes cilantro. She has said that to her, it tastes like a more pungent fresh parsley with a very “green freshness”. As a result, in recipes that call for cilantro, we often substitute fresh parsley because it works as an adequate substitute for her without disgusting me.
There are lots of other nasty falvors in cilantro. I taste the soap, and it alone is bad enough, but the worst for me is the nasty perfume. And if someone wants to know what it tastes like follow this procedure.
1.Purchase Hi! Karate!
2. Gargle Hi! Karate!
3. Eat lunch immediately afterward.
4. Tell me how long it takes you to “get used to it” :mad:
I wonder about this too. I mean, coriander’s ubiquitous in dishes from my family’s culture, and before the Straight Dope, I’d never even heard of the soapy taste thing (though I do gather that it’s a fairly widespread phenomenon). I wonder if that means acclimatization destroys the effect, that my ethnic group lacks the corresponding genes, or merely that I lack awareness of those among it who experience the problem.
I can easily roll my tongue but I seldom do because it makes it more difficult to scarf down cilantro. Mmmmm, cilantro.
Yes, “spicy parsley with a very green freshness” is a pretty good description of cilantro taste; I also think there’s a sort of citrusy tang to it too.
Cilantro, like many other spicy foods, used to taste stronger and “weirder” to me when I first encountered it than it does now, but I don’t recall ever having that soap-tasting experience.
Fellow cilantro lovers, what do you think of “cilantro coyote” or wild cilantro, if you’ve encountered it? IME it’s seldom found in the US but it seems to be much better known in some Latin American countries; there are some pretty good pictures and descriptions of it about 2/3 of the way down this page.
Cilantro coyote leaves are larger and leafier than “regular” cilantro, looking more like baby lettuce than like sprigs of parsley, and IMO the taste is out of this world. I can finish a large bowl of salsa with regular cilantro in it, but when I had the stuff with cilantro coyote in Costa Rica I had to use real self-restraint to keep from polishing off like a whole gallon of it.
I wonder whether the “soap-tasters” would have a similar problem with cilantro coyote? robcaro, have you had any experience with it? In a perfect world, the cilantro coyote wouldn’t be affected by the soap-taste tendency and all humanity everywhere would be capable of experiencing the glory that is cilantro in its most exquisite form, but I don’t think I’ll bet on it.
(By the way, don’t forget that cilantro is great in several other cuisines besides Mexican as well: try an Indian-style snack of fresh bread spread with plain yogurt and sprinkled with chopped cilantro and salt. Yumyumyumyumyum.)
Data point: my cilantro-loving SO emailed me to say she can not roll her tongue.