# Why does cilantro taste like soap? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 2, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598 "2006-12-02T17:43:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Critical\_Mass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@Critical\_Mass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical_Mass)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/101 "2006-12-06T02:11:30Z")
[QUOTE=Broomstick] Nope. I hate soaplantro, love beer, always have. [/QUOTE] Let me disprove this the other way. Love cilantro - don’t use it frequently, but it’s always good to have it as an ingredient. Not a fan of beer. Particularly North American swill. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/102 "2006-12-06T04:30:44Z")
[QUOTE=Kimstu] [warning: naive speculations from someone who knows basically jack about population genetics] Sounds intriguing, and plausible, to me at any rate. If so, could we expect to find the “soap-taste” gene correlated more strongly with membership in ethnic populations that don’t traditionally eat cilantro, the way lactose intolerance is correlated more strongly with membership in ethnic populations that don’t traditionally eat lots of dairy products? I mean, surely cilantro wouldn’t have become ubiquitous in the cuisine of cultures that had substantial numbers of people who can’t stand the taste of it, right? Does that jibe with the experience of the cilantro-haters here? How about it, soap-tasters? Do any of you belong to an ethnic group (Indian, Mexican, Chinese maybe?) that traditionally uses lots of cilantro? If so, how did you survive Grandma’s cooking? 🙂 [/warning: naive speculations] [/QUOTE] My etnicity is mostly sicilian, with a little german, irish and czech thrown in for good measure. For the most part, I grew up eating really “whitebread” americanesque meals, unless we hung out with the italian side. But even then… no one ever used cilantro. I never even noticed it until my twenties, when I tried a salsa at a restaurant, and spat it out. I thought they didn’t rinse the salsa bowl during a cleaning, and the soap had contaminated the batch. Of course, no one else at the table knew what the hell I was talking about and happily munched away. I was in complete disbelief that anyone could put that in their mouth. I though they we all out of their mind. Finally someone said it might be the cilantro and he heard that some people DO in fact taste a soapy flavor. That was the first time i’d ever encountered it and figured that must be the case. I’m utterly convinced it’s a genetic thing, because it so overwhelming offensive, that if anyone could taste what I taste, they would think they were being poisoned. ---
**Author:** ![Hirundo82](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/919ad9/32.png) [@Hirundo82](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hirundo82)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/103 "2006-12-06T05:23:26Z")
[QUOTE=Dangerosa] To me, the most plausible explaination I’ve heard (which may have no basis in fact) is that the soap cilantro taste works like a recessive gene. Have zero recessive “soap taste” genes and it taste fine. You may like it or not like it based on your own personal tastes. Have one recessive “soap taste” genes and you get a slight soapiness that may not be completely unpleasant. You know what the cilantro haters are talking about, but - like beer - you can learn to like it. I fall in this category. I can taste a soapiness - but it isn’t horrible. I wish Chipotle’s rice didn’t have cilantro in it, but it doesn’t stop me from eating it. You have two recessive “soap taste” genes and there will never be any way to redeem cilantro. You will want to wash you mouth out with sand after eating it. You can’t imagine why people put this in food. While this may not be the mechanism, it does seem to hold true as a model in my experience. [/QUOTE] I hate to nitpick, but what you are describing–two different alleles giving a phenotype between the two–would best be described as an [incompletely dominant](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_relationship#Incomplete_dominance) trait. Simple dominance is binary–if you have even one copy of the dominant allele, you have the same phenotype as someone who is homozygous dominant. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/104 "2006-12-06T05:40:19Z")
[QUOTE=qwest] Not a fan of beer. Particularly North American swill. [/QUOTE] As a beer lover, I have to ask what you mean by this? That’s like saying “I don’t like European cheese”. If you don’t like beer, that’s fine - I don’t like cilantro, but “North American Swill”? All the thousands of beers available in the US lumped under “swill”? From “The Beer Hunter” [Michael Jackson](http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001608.html) (widely recognized as the foremost authority on beer) > [@](#): > > The astonishing diversity of styles today produced in the U.S. issues from more than 1,500 breweries. The United States has the most breweries, the strongest beer, but - much more important - the greatest diversity. > > No country in Europe could remotely approach the 50-odd styles of beer that are judged each year at the Great American Beer Festival. Remember, all of those are brewed in the U.S. > > I fly to America every other month on average. I have been doing this for more than 20 years, and have visited every state. I come here for the beer…and interviewers still don’t believe me. That’s 50 _styles_, not 50 beers. And now back to our regularly scheduled program. Beer good, Cilantro BAD ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/105 "2006-12-06T06:32:49Z")
[QUOTE=Bobotheoptimist] As a beer lover, I have to ask what you mean by this? That’s like saying “I don’t like European cheese”. If you don’t like beer, that’s fine - I don’t like cilantro, but “North American Swill”? All the thousands of beers available in the US lumped under “swill”? From “The Beer Hunter” [Michael Jackson](http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-001608.html) (widely recognized as the foremost authority on beer) That’s 50 _styles_, not 50 beers. And now back to our regularly scheduled program. Beer good, Cilantro BAD [/QUOTE] I agree. There’s no better country to be in if you’re a beer lover. ---
**Author:** ![Critical\_Mass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@Critical\_Mass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical_Mass)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/106 "2006-12-06T07:26:19Z")
Apologies - didn’t intend to hijack the thread and I’ll be brief. Most certainly, there are some quality brews in North America. The types of beers which I don’t care for are the lagers and pilsners from the biggest breweries. Coors, Budweiser, Miller, Labatt, Molson. ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/107 "2006-12-06T14:53:15Z")
Hey, I’m a homebrewer and microbrewerie junkie, and _still_ say that American beers suck. That’s a shortcut intended to mean, though, that the big, commercial, mass market American beers are the ones that suck. Unfortunately in all too many places, it’s those mass market American swill beers that are sold. “What’cha got?” “Bud, Bud Light, Coors, Miller…” Yuck! Is it any wonder the rest of the world thinks all American beer is swill? Plus, what you they import (or license locally)? Bud, Bud Light, Coors. In my time here in Ontario I’ve come to realize something very important – despite the fact that a simple pitcher of beer costs $16, they actually have variety. Sure, you get “Canadian, Bud, Bud Light…” but you _also_ get “Rickard’s Red, Creemore, Sleeman’s Pale Ale…” – and all of these are _draught_! Even the Blue-drinking Canadians laugh at American beer. ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2006, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/108 "2006-12-06T15:36:53Z")
Fosters, Molson, Heineken, Corona… It’s not just us! But yes, Bud/Coors/Miller suck - not as much as cilantro, and I understand that’s what most people think of when they think American beer (BCM, not cilantro… Cilantro Light, by Coors \), but it still kind of annoys me. Just like English food, the English have some tasty cuisine! America has good beer too, but we have some absolute crap, even (or especially) some of the microbrews. And maybe this should be its own thread, sorry. I’ll stop now 🙂 I don’t think the mass market salsa (Pace, Old El Paso) have cilantro, and maybe that’s why I buy them instead of quality stuff. We have some darn good Mexican food in Denver, and it seems that only the yuppie places and the big chains dump soap leaves in everything. Little places that don’t speak English (like Don Quixote’s down on Alameda and Federal) don’t put cilantro on everything. Took me a long time to figure out what that terrible taste was at semi-upscale places. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/109 "2006-12-07T00:03:55Z")
So, with so many “poison tasters” out there, why is cilantro’s popularity growing so rapidly? Why is Taco Bell using it? Why are restaurants pre-mixing it with their sauces, salsas, rice and meat dishes, etc, so it can’t be left off upon request? What can we do to reverse the trend? A lot of waiters and cashiers still don’t know what the stuff is or that it is so loathed by some. I’m frequently told with a proud smile that the dish I’m ordering absolutely, positively, does not containt cilantro, only to be served a piping hot plate of chopped green death. It’s becoming endemic here in the southwest. Restaurants that didn’t use it last week are sprinkling all of their entrees with it this week. I recently ordered french fries at an American restaurant and they were sprinkled with what I thought was parsely. It was cilantro. Restaurateurs need to understand that if some of us are served a dish containing cilantro WE CANNOT EAT IT. ---
**Author:** ![Jake4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bc8723/32.png) [@Jake4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake4)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/110 "2006-12-07T00:21:44Z")
[QUOTE=teela brown] I don’t think I’ve ever seen a salsa without cilantro in it. You cilantro-haters must have a tough time of it if you want salsa on your chips. I love cilantro. I recently made some mango/onion/habanero/cilantro salsa. Yummy. [/QUOTE] Hi teela brown, (nice nick) I too love cilantro, and besides salsas, I especially enjoy the green coriander chutney that people from the India / Afghanistan region make. Would you post the recipe for your salsa? Someone (cmyk, from post 11) linked cilantro with acetaminophen in [one of my previous threads](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=226844) about being able to smell the acetaminophen in my blood. Don’t know why I remembered that. cmyk, I don’t think that people who think it tastes good have a gene that lets them taste something extra & nice. It’s the people who think it tastes bad who have a gene that lets them taste these soap-like compounds. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/111 "2006-12-07T00:45:40Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] Restaurateurs need to understand that if some of us are served a dish containing cilantro WE CANNOT EAT IT. [/QUOTE] Well, it doesn’t sound like you’re allergic to it, you just don’t like it. In any case, [this website](http://www.ihatecilantro.com/stories.php) is what you’re looking for. I especially like the pictures. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SkeptiJess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@SkeptiJess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkeptiJess)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/112 "2006-12-07T01:11:16Z")
I dislike cilantro. I don’t know that ‘soapy’ is the descriptor I’d use for it exactly… to me, it tastes like dirty dishwater. There’s soapiness there, but I also taste dirt and… rotteness, I guess. I love Mexican food, too, and I hate that cilantro is so common in that cuisine. I never eat salsa and will ask that any ‘extra’ cilantro be held when I’m eating at a Mexican place. I can tolerate it ok in small doses (if it’s mixed in the rice or something), and if it’s been cooked. I love beer. Even the shitty American stuff. In fact, I’m drinking a Coors Light right now. It was the last beer in the house – I just drank the last Yeungling. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/113 "2006-12-07T01:26:57Z")
[QUOTE=levdrakon] Well, it doesn’t sound like you’re allergic to it, you just don’t like it. In any case, [this website](http://www.ihatecilantro.com/stories.php) is what you’re looking for. I especially like the pictures. 😉 [/QUOTE] I think the jury is still out on whether or not soap/poison tasters are actually allergic to it. In any case, if you tasted what we taste, you would not be able to consume it. See post #86 upthread for further explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/114 "2006-12-07T01:58:34Z")
[QUOTE=levdrakon] Well, it doesn’t sound like you’re allergic to it, you just don’t like it. [/QUOTE] No, I’m not allergic to it. But I don’t like it in the same way I don’t like to see/smell/detect feces in my food. Or vomit. It goes a little beyond simply “it tastes bad”. It is nauseating. Repulsive. I’m not sure I could eat it even if the alternative was starving to death. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/115 "2006-12-07T02:50:39Z")
Funny that this would be a heated topic and coincidental that I came across it as a workmate just this week mentioned she was taking an informal lifelong poll of peoples opinion on cilantro. I guess she had heard about that recessive gene thing on TLC or something a while back. I’m in the “tastes like perfume/chlorine” camp. It is a little bizarre to realize that most people have such a distinctly different experience of the same substance. One of those surreal bits or reality I get to enjoy, I suppose. Regardless, my guacamole does just fine without it, thank you very much. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/116 "2006-12-07T02:53:15Z")
Oh, and I’ve eaten it without consequence. I don’t think I’m allergic. ---
**Author:** ![Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/c4cdca/32.png) [@Quiddity\_Glomfuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quiddity_Glomfuster)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/117 "2006-12-07T04:27:54Z")
[QUOTE=Hirundo82] homozygous dominant. [/QUOTE] Not that there’s anything wrong with that! 😃 I get that people dislike cilantro but what’s with all the complaints about it being served? There are lots of foods hated by lots of people - in another thread an amazing number of people cited bananas and/or tomatoes as foods they loathe with a passion. Yet these vile things (according to some) are served constantly in restaurants and are in many, many foods. I can’t eat iceberg lettuce. Because of that, there are a LOT of things I can’t eat unless I ask for them to be specially made. I’m not about to rant about the horrid big bad world that insists on serving iceberg any more than I’d expect the banana-tomato haters to start a petition to eliminate them from restaurants. Not that anyone’s suggested that. Yet. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/118 "2006-12-07T05:12:10Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] I get that people dislike cilantro but what’s with all the complaints about it being served? [/QUOTE] Obviously you **don’t** get it. It doesn’t taste gross. It tastes like POISON. It tastes 100% completely inedible. There are foods that taste “grosser” than cilantro (Bertie Bott’s jelly beans, for instance) but are much more edible. Also, cilantro is a spice, so it is _infused_ with the dishes it is served with. It’s not something you can pick off or eat around or ask them to leave out. That is what’s with all the complaints about it being served. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/119 "2006-12-07T05:16:18Z")
[QUOTE=Broomstick] No, I’m not allergic to it. But I don’t like it in the same way I don’t like to see/smell/detect feces in my food. Or vomit. It goes a little beyond simply “it tastes bad”. It is nauseating. Repulsive. I’m not sure I could eat it even if the alternative was starving to death. [/QUOTE] So I guess you’re not interested in my fresh cilantro pesto recipe? ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2006, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598/120 "2006-12-07T08:17:48Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] I get that people dislike cilantro but what’s with all the complaints about it being served? There are lots of foods hated by lots of people - in another thread an amazing number of people cited bananas and/or tomatoes as foods they loathe with a passion. Yet these vile things (according to some) are served constantly in restaurants and are in many, many foods. [/QUOTE] The complaints stem mainly from the fact that far too many restaurants have begun slathering the stuff in, on, and over dishes that traditionally have been free of it. That makes it much harder to avoid. I don’t think any of us would ask that people who like cilantro stop eating it, or that restaurants stop serving it. We’re just worried about its increasing ubiquity. I mean, someone upthread mentioned a place that dumped the stuff over french fries, for cryin’ out unprintably. To project an analogous situation with your leafy bane, it’s like burying the fries in finely shredded, slightly sticky lettuce (assuming your issues with iceberg lettuce are of roughly the same scale). If you can’t pick it off or get the restaurant to leave it out, you’re stuck with an inedible dish–and it’s often harder to get them to leave the stuff out than it is to tell them “hold the lettuce”, because of the way cilantro is used. I like Tex-Mex, and I live in a city where good Tex-Mex is easy to find. I don’t want to give it up just because it’s become trendy to use an herb that utterly revolts me. There are already restaurants here that I won’t patronize–and even one I can’t stand to enter because of the sweatsock reek–because they overuse the stuff. If they just put it in their salsa, their pico, and/or a few dishes, it’s not a big deal. I’ll just avoid the contaminated stuff. It’s when they put it in everything that they lose my business. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-cilantro-taste-like-soap/382598.md?page=7)