Cilantro is absolutely vile. It tastes like soap, dirt, bugs, dirty socks – just blech, so nasty! (yes, I believe in the genetic component)
Cilantro is delicious; so fresh and green-tasting! I can taste the soap-component, but there’s so much more to the flavour than that.
All food tastes good to me. I’m lucky that way.
I don’t taste soap at ALL, but yeah, that’s what I think about it tasting fresh and green. It doesn’t taste minty at all, but fresh in the same way fresh mint does.
As for what tastes like dirt (and rust), it’s Arrowhead water. I’ve never heard of anyone else thinking that and I don’t see how not.
I don’t use Coriander/Cilantro that much. Usually in a chilli or sirfry but don’t get much flavour from it on it’s own.
I’ve used fresh leaves as a garnish and it doesn’t taste soapy.
Hate it with the passion etc. etc. it’s not food, it’s chopped evil.
But I’ve never got the soap taste. To me, it tastes like the inside of an ashtray (and, yes, I have tasted the inside of an ashtray, short but dull story). Seriously, it’s shudderingly bad.
I like cilantro okay, but it is often way over used.
It tastes good in dishes that call for it, e.g., in Georgian cuisine. (Georgia the country, not the state.) I can see that some would consider cilantro an acquired taste, but I quite like all of the dishes I’ve tried that include it.
It smells like old dishwater and tastes both soapy and bitter-minty. I don’t like the taste at all but the worst part is the digestive distress. I always told people I was allergic to it growing up.
I love the stuff – coriander, as we weird people in the UK call it. I don’t think I’ve met anyone in real life who dislikes it; but since discovering Internet message boards, I’ve become aware how many people do – often with a passion. Have often come across the citing by folk who hate it, of a to them soap-like taste, as mentioned here.
The only friend I have who hates it happens to be of Indian decent, and grew up loathing her mother’s cooking as a result. Can’t persuade her to go for a curry for love nor money.
I LOVE fresh coriander and always have a bunch in the kitchen.
I recommend this article as well: it’s a fascinating interplay between genetics and environment.
I freakin’ love cilantro. The taste is hard to describe, except that it just tastes… green. Green and fresh.
The only problem I have with cilantro is that the local invasive Brown Marmorated Stink Bug smells a lot like how cilantro tastes… so now I’m starting to associate the flavor of cilantro with the bugs, and I’m always afraid that if I taste cilantro in my food it’s because I’m about to bite into a stink bug that fell into the pot.
Cilantro is an excellent herb, although now I’ve got a hankering to try quillquiña (a.k.a. papalo), which is described as tasting like cilantro, only considerably stronger (some call it “cilantro on steroids”). I may have to order seeds.
For those with impaired taste buds, my advice is to not eat food prepared with cilantro. There are probably Mexican restaurants that will make special dishes for you. And if not, there are lots of other foods to eat.
For the “weird U.K. people”, coriander is a name typically applied here to the seeds, not the leafy parts.
I don’t care for it-it does have a soapy flavor. But the ground seeds (coriander) are very good with meats and sauces-I like it very much.
I’m with the posters above who said it tasted soapy the first few times but grew to love it. I had no choice other than to eat it as I was in Thailand at the time. Now I would put it in anything and frequently just pull a few stems from the bunch in the fridge and eat it directly.
Wait, cilantro and coriander are the same thing? Maybe I like it better than I thought I did when I voted in the poll.
Of Indian descent, but hating coriander – that must be a real bummer. Analogies come to mind, such as being a Russian allergic to alcohol, or a sailor who is always seasick…
Interesting – in UK, just “coriander” pretty much implies the fresh plant. Re the seeds, we talk about “coriander seed”, whether whole or ground.
Cilantro is the Spanish name for coriander. In the US, the leafy green is known as “cilantro” and the seeds are known as “coriander” or “coriander seeds.” In the UK (and other English-speaking countries outside the US, although I’m not sure about Canada), the leafy green is known as “coriander” and the seeds are specifically referred to as such.
They taste quite different. Cilantro has that soap/stinkbug/green/fresh flavor to it. Coriander seed has a distinct citrussy kind of note to it, along with a general earth spiciness.