In the early nineties I graduated high school and worked on a tiny farm for a summer. Most of the farm produce was delicious, and I ate it all.
Except arugula. I’d never heard of it before, and when I smelled it the first time, no kidding I thought there was a dead animal nearby. My first taste was somewhere between rubber cement and corpses, and I couldn’t wash the taste out of my mouth for a long time. A single leaf of it in a salad was enough to ruin the salad for me. Even being near it was terrible.
Years of exposure to arugula have enabled me to tolerate it, but only barely: I still won’t eat it if I can politely avoid eating it. And yesterday when I took my daughter to our garden and tasted a new sprout from the mixed greens we’d planted, I was horrified to realize that the mix contained arugula: even a single sprout of the plant is chock full of nasty.
Is this a common reaction to this green? I’ve never had another green that I dislike so intensely. I wonder (especially since my mom has a similar reaction) if there is some sort of hereditary component, similar to what may exist (I’ve read disputing articles) regarding cilantro.
I find it bitter and unpleasant, but not to the extent you describe LHoD. It’s possible you’re just more sensitive to that particular flavor than most people.
Whenever I eat whatever I eat, I want it to taste good. Arugula is bitter and doesn’t taste good. I won’t even make a pretense of eating it out of politeness for my hosts, and if it is served in a restaurant, I send it back. I find it absolutely vile.
Is this one of those things like Cilantro where it’s fantastic for some while others think it stinks and tastes like soap? I’ve always liked both and never thought anything was weird about either.
I love arugula. To me it isn’t bitter at all, but rather has a spicy taste like black pepper. Are you sure you’re not confusing it with radicchio (which is purple, and bitter beyond belief). For the record, I hate cilantro with the fire of a thousand suns – and I don’t think I’ve ever met a person who hates arugula before (I know plenty if people in the “take it or leave it” category).
Definitely arugula I’m complaining about–remember, I first encountered it because I was helping to grow a crop of it.
Thing is, I don’t find it especially bitter, unless you consider rotten meat to be bitter. There are plenty of bitter foods I enjoy, including other greens and, well, bitters.
Arugula’s flavor, even fresh-picked, is rancid and terrible to me. Maybe it really is just some quirk of my taste buds.
Same here. I love it and it has a really nice slightly bitter, spicy and peppery flavor. It’s great in a salad with stuff like roasted pears and nuts with bleu cheese crumbles or something similar. Crap, now I wish I had some.
I, too, love it. And it might be a similar situation to cilantro, but it’s not the same situation: I’m also one of those who thinks cilantro tastes soapy (though I’ve learned to tolerate and even appreciate it in small doses).
A friend of mine has a similar reaction to cilantro. Like dead animals, apparently. She isn’t a particularly picky eater either.
Tastes vary, and food tastes really vary:
“Each human carries their own distinctive set of taste receptors which gives them a unique perception of how foods and medicines taste,” explains Monell Chemical Senses Center psychophysicist Paul Breslin, PhD, who shares first authorship and is a corresponding contributor for the study. “This paper shows that a single gene codes for multiple forms of a taste receptor, with each form having a differing sensitivity to taste compounds. Further, a person’s perceptual sensitivity to these bitter tasting compounds corresponds strikingly well with their genetically-determined receptor sensitivity.”
Several years ago my wife went to Thailand and came back with a bag full of Thai candies. Most of them were delicious.
Then there were the Durian candies. The first one I ate, I nearly gagged.
The second one I ate, I was curious if it could possibly be as bad I remembered. And yeah, it was, but it was also intriguing.
I ended up finishing off the bag.
The stinky grossness of durian fruit (at least durian fruit candy) is the closest I can think of to how I perceive arugula, only arugula lacks that intriguing redemptive quality.
It’s fascinating to me that nobody else seems to perceive it that way.
I recall an NPR segment where a taste expert gave the host a certain chemical. The host tasted… nothing, apparently like a majority of people. But some - a significant minority- would have been gagging apparently. Taste receptors really do vary across the human population.
I do. Well, I’ve never had durian, but I find arugula to be the most disgusting fresh food I have ever eaten. It ruins everything it touches. It’s the only single ingredient I can think of that has kept me from ordering a salad I otherwise would want.
FWIW, I grew up on a farm and love almost all fruit and vegetables raw, including cabbage and turnips. I’m not a picky eater and I’m not really opposed to bitter. I don’t think it is a bitter taste that bothers me about arugula. I honestly didn’t know anyone liked it and thought it was a weird food trend.
Also hate cilantro, but don’t find it soapy. To me, cilantro is bitter. And unpleasant, like something that isn’t meant to be food. I wonder, but don’t think I can ever know, if some people taste what I am tasting and enjoy it, if some people taste what I taste and think it is soapy, or if I taste something completely different from both those groups.
