I think I’m okiedoke with cilantro. 
I wonder if there’s any correlation between cilantro-lovers/haters and supertasters?
Yep. If it’s what CBE is referring to, it’s made from a steamed beef head. There’s tacos de sesos (brain), tacos de lengua (tongue), and I think “de cabeza” is usually just cheek meat. I’ve even had a taco de ojo (eyeball) once.
Yeah, for me, no taco would be complete without a topping of onion + cilantro.
Well, I’ve aquired a taste for it. 15 or 20 years ago, it tasted like soap to me, but not for at least the last 10 years now. In New Mexico, all the really good stuff has cilantro. I guess I just got desensitized to the soap taste.
Another one here who is not a fan of “soaplantro”. Fortunately, in the Midwest, many places do not put cilantro in their salsa, so I didn’t encounter it until maybe 15 years ago. My first thought was that the dishes hadn’t been thoroughly rinsed. It doesn’t taste like Ivory soap to me, it tastes like harsh industrial dishwashing granules. Yuck.
Like many of the posters here, I LOVE cilantro and can’t get enough of it. But I’ll have to admit that if it’s not absolutely fresh, it starts to taste rather funky. Maybe if you cilantro haters made sure the cilantro was fresh and only added a small amount to your dishes, it would taste better. Other than that, I got nothin’.
Normally that means cheek muscle meat – not too bad, although I’m glad that no one told me what they were before finding that I liked them. Sometimes, though, you’ll find tacos de cabeza which should really be called tacos de cesos (brains) or tacos de lengua (tongue), neither of which I’ve tried as far as I know (!!).
Cheek is just another muscle, you know. I don’t get into other organs too much myself.
*Lengua * (tongue) is “just another muscle” as well, not organ meat. It’s generally ground or shredded so you can see or feel the icky taste buds. I doubt you’d be able to tell it was tongue in the taco.
There’s a double-entendre in there somewhere, I just know it…
I like cilantro (when it’s used properly) in many dishes.
My girlfriend loves cilantro. However, when she plans on cooking with it, she tends to buy a sizable bush of it. The remaining cilantro she doesn’t use goes in the fridge where it immediately taints everything within if it’s not professionally contained biohazard-style: drinking water, leftovers, you name it. The image I’m trying to convey is a fridge flavor coup, far from bloodless.
All by itself, it smells like sweet rotting garbage. It’s a menace.
The first few times I tried cilantro, it tasted powerfully of soap, so I stayed away from it for a couple of years. Then I tried it again, and the soap taste was gone! So that may be what he is referring to - cilantro seems to be one of those foods that you can acquire a taste for.
Yeah?
Someone told me that and I tried it.
I still gagged and almost puked. Sorry, it DOES taste like soap to me, even when fresh (as in “just picked from someone’s garden”) and even in minute quantities.
All of the meat from the head and a good part of the cartilege is comsumed. There is meat from the cheeks, cachete, the snout, trompa, the ear, oreja, the palate, paladar and of course the brains, tongue and eyes.
The first time I had raw cilantro in Vietnamese food, I didn’t make a soap connection, but the herb tasted somewhat bitterly medicinal. However, it was a mild influence on the dish and the dish overall was so good that I put up with the cilantro. After just a year or two of eating it, I had become accustomed. That was 15-20 years ago.
What really tasted like soap to me was an herb called rau ram. I am not sure what the precise English translation is. I’ve heard it called Vietnamese mint, but it doesn’t taste minty to me. It has a narrower & pointier leaf and is commonly encountered in beef salad.
Seen here:
The “tastes like fresh air” response definitely captures some of the experience, but if you want a more herb-y context, try to imagine a blend of, say, parsley, lemongrass, chilies, and mint.
Oh, for God’s sake.
“Here’s your cilantro-spiced offal taco, sir.”
“Offal?”
“Horrendous.”
Isn’t offal internal organs?
They’re offal good, too.
Such a sissy palate you have.
From Dictionary.com:
of·fal /ˈɔfəl, ˈɒfəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[aw-fuhl, of-uhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun 1. the parts of a butchered animal that are considered inedible by human beings; carrion.
2. the parts of a butchered animal removed in dressing; viscera.
3. refuse; rubbish; garbage.
You’re welcome to them.
Oh, go bite a Tijuana burrito.
I also thought offal was internal organs/entrails, but I guess the definition has been stretched a bit. According to Offal Good.com, offal now encompasses stuff like tongue, tails, and feet–I would never have thought any of those qualify.
So oxtail is now considered offal? Weird.
Offal literal means “off fell” or fell off as in fell off the butcher’s block.
I love cilantro. I use it in all kinds of stuff, but always fresh.
This is literally the first time I’ve heard that it tasted like soap. Everyone around me loves it, too. A friend of mine has a recipe for cilantro soup, consisting almost entirely of cilantro, that is really popular with all of her family and friends. It also knocks the shit out of a cold.
I can’t eat a taco or burrito without onions and cilantro. When I eat it it tastes kind of crisp and fresh to me - not overpoweringly so, but kind of an “ahhhhhh”, if that makes sense. I’ll eat the stuff raw, without any accompaniment, if I’ve got it.
Man, now I want some. 
You soap-tasters are missing out on something awsome.
~Tasha