Cilantro… the eeeeeevilest of herbs. At least having the “soapy cilantro taste” gene makes up for my lack of the gene that enables you to smell how asparagus makes your pee smell bad. (Yes, there is one. In a college physiology lab we all had to eat asparagus, which was the hardest part of the experiment for some people in the class, and report on the aroma of our tinkle. Out of the whole class I was the only one who didn’t smell the smell. Go me!)
I wish someone would hurry up and find a gene that makes you hate the taste of shellfish, so I’d have something to throw at the people who stare at me in stunned disbelief that I don’t think shrimp/lobster/oysters and other such boogerballs from the ocean floor are ambrosia of the gods.
For those of you confused: There is a compound or something (I forget what) in cilantro that SOME people can taste and others cannot. This is due to having a recessive gene (again, I forget what gene that is, but I know it comes down to a gene). So yeah, having cilantro taste like soap to you is a genetic thing…although I’m pretty sure the “soapy taste” is the more dominant trait of it and the people who don’t taste it–and therefore love cilantro–are in the minority (I.E. have the recessive gene/trait that makes them not able to taste it).
Or…it could be the other way around…what do I know?
But I do know it comes down to a trait/gene.
It reminds me of 11th grade biology when they’d taught you dominant and recessive genes…one of tests was called PTC tasting (google it–it’s extraordinary). They’d give you a small slip of paper that you’d then put in your mouth. If you were recessive for the gene, the paper tasted HORRIBLE to you. If you were dominant for the gene, the paper tasted like, well…paper.
Tasted like paper to me. Although some classmates’ faces grimaced and spat it out as quickly as possible.
Cilantro has something in it that is the same for people. So some will love it…and others (most) will probably think it tastes horrible.
I love cilantro. I was reading this thread last Friday and thinking “Soapy… I don’t think it tastes soapy. Maybe it does and I just like that it tastes soapy…” So on Saturday husband and I went out for Mexican, which we both love, and I carefully set aside the sprig of cilantro on top of my food so I could just munch on it straight after we were done eating. So when I did, I could taste a subtle lemon-y quality that sort of REMINDS me of soap. Is this what everyone means? I suspect not and I just do not possess the ability to taste the soapiness. Still tastes like pure green joy to me.
In regards to others mentioned, celery has an extremely over-powering taste to me. Fresh celery always compels me to cough. I don’t mind it cooked in things and actually have tasted things where it has a complementary taste. But I can’t manage to munch on it raw. I do add celery seed to some types of dishes, because it has the same distinctive flacor in a subtle enough way that I like it.
I like broccoli. Can’t stand sprouts or cauliflower.
ugly_ripe_tomato, I’m with you. The odor of shellfish being cooked makes me nauseous and dizzy like you wouldn’t believe. I can’t imagine what it would taste like to me. I steer clear of all seafood in general.
I think you’ve got it backwards. The cilantro-haters are in the minority. They’d have to be; otherwise, there wouldn’t be so much cilantro all over the place.
Yes. I remember reading that cilantro is the most widely-used herb in the world. Which makes sense to me, since it seems to be ubiquitous in everything from Middle Eastern to Asian to Latin American cuisine. It does seem to have much less of a following, though, in Europe and North America north of Mexico. I’ve seen the seed used in European cookery, but I can’t ever remember coming across the green.
So, you could have two hypotheses here: either those of European lineage are genetically predisposed to not like cilantro, or they don’t like cilantro because they haven’t acquired a taste for it. Plenty of Europeans can’t stand the littlest bit of hot pepper in their dishes, so I wouldn’t necessarily be quick to put it all on genetics. Once again, though, nature or nurture, it doesn’t really matter. If you don’t like cilantro, you don’t like cilantro; you don’t need a reason.
I hate shellfish, both the taste and the smell. My husband has to get his shellfish fix from restaurants (he’s half Cajun), because I don’t want that smell in my house.
I have irritable bowel disease/syndrome, and one of my triggers is black pepper. And guess what EVERY restaurant chef with any pretentions will grind into just about every dish? Yep. So, while I love cilantro, I will defend the rights of those who can’t stand it to have it left out of their meals. I really hate it when a food or seasoning or technique becomes trendy, so that nearly every dish offered comes with the hated item.
I can respect that. I mentioned if everyone started putting anise in everything it would suck to be me, 'cause I hate the stuff.
I’ve related this anecdote before. There was this new, trendy restaurant that opened called something like, “The Citrus Cafe.” My roommate and I went to check it out, were seated out on the patio and heard this woman at a nearby table loudly admonishing the waiter “I’m allergic to citrus. My food better not have any citrus!”
My roommate & I looked at each other with a WTF? 500 restaurants in this town and you have to eat at this one? Yanno, McDonald’s doesn’t put citrus in their burgers, why do you have to pursue you’re agenda at a place called “The Citrus Cafe?”
I understand cilantro is apparently trendy now. Personally, I haven’t noticed. I wish I encountered it more often. But, restaurants aren’t your mom, and they don’t really have to meet your dietary requirements. You don’t have to eat at this or that restaurant.
People say “they’re putting it in everything.” Are they, really? I have to seek it out, at a Mexican or Thai place.
I lived most of my adult life in California, and can’t remember ever getting cilantro in anything I wouldn’t expect it to be in.
No. to the people who perceive it thus, the soap flavor is intense, vile, and overwhelming, like a mouthful of Dawn dishsoap. It makes the entire dish taste disgusting and inedible. No other herbs taste this way (BTW, to us cilantro-haters, cilantro tastes nothing like parsley, which is one of the most inoffensive, nearly tasteless herbs out there).
Yeah, but if she went to McD’s she wouldn’t have been able to throw her little temper tantrum so everyone in the place could see how important and allergic to citrus she is.
That reminds me of a former co-worker who has a life threatening allergy to seafood, whose favorite restaurant is Red Lobster :smack:
And people wonder why waiters should get tips. It’s not because they serve food, it’s because they frequently they have to cater to needs psychotherapists charge $200/hr for.
This. If I were starving and stumbling through the forest looking for food, and I came upon a big luscious cilantro patch, I’d spit it out after one bite thinking it was poison. It doesn’t taste like food; it tastes horribly, horribly wrong. I can’t even stand to be in the kitchen when someone is cutting it because the smell is so nauseating. I don’t like cumin, either, but cumin doesn’t taste toxic to me the way cilantro does.
OK, let me try this again - it’s not that I find cilantro unpleasent, I find it toxic-level revolting. The last time I got something with cilantro in it - and it was a teeny amount I couldn’t even see - I gagged. As in hanging-over-the-toilet-bowl-making-gross-noises-for-several-minutes gagged.
Are we clear on that now? There are a lot of foods that I hate the taste of. Cilantro is the only one I can recall being so vile as to make me have a genuine go at vomiting. It goes beyond your ordinary dislike.
Dude, I understand. I’m not talking to you directly or to every case of cilantro hate. (Then again, I have a friend who nearly vomits if he encounters mayonnaise. Whether the dislike is ordinary or extraordinary, it doesn’t make any difference to me. You don’t have to tell me why you don’t like it or, if you prefer, can’t eat it.)
Sorry if I seemed touchy, but it is very hard to get some folks to understand just how vile it is to some of us, and that no, we will never “learn to like it” or “acquire a taste for it”. It’s about as likely as acquiring a taste for drinking bleach. Or Draino. Or something else immediate pain and suffering will tell you is Very Bad for Your Health.
It’s okay. I do understand that for some people it tastes like the essence of Ivory soap. Hence the reason I always ask whenever I prepare anything with cilantro in it for other people. Because for people who don’t like it, they really don’t like it.
Yup, count me in the haters camp. It’s just NOT FOOD. I love the different descriptions on that site that Contrapuntal linked to. For me it tastes like how a cross between soap and cigarettes would taste. I can detect it in tiny slivers - makes Indian and Thai food a voyage of trepidation, unless I remember to ask the waiter for it to be skipped.
