I mean, really it is quite foul.
Why is it that most people like it and a small number of us find it to be the most pukeriffic flavor imaginable?
I’ve tried googling it, wrote in to Straight Dope, wrote a letter to the Scientific American, but have never found an answer.
I can’t even walk by it in the grocery store without smelling that awful smell and getting angry.
A previous thread on the subject.
Thanks. I’ll happily delete this thread to clear up space. Can you tell me how to do it?
It will die a natural death and fall off the front page.
But not before at least 8 people chime in with: another link, a half-assed theory they read on a cereal box, 2 jokes, 4 puns, a declaration of undying alliegence to cilantro, and a question about coriander. Maybe a recipe or two as well. 
Let us fight ignorance a bit more before the thread dies by reposting broomstick’s most educational and helpful info!
From the above-linked thread.
<mod>
When I saw the Google ad that this thread brought up, saying “Embarrasing Vaginal Odor,” I said to myself, “Self, this thread belongs in IMHO.”
I selflessly moved it for you.
</mod>
OK, now those ads are starting to weird me out. They’re just trying to be disturbing.
My biggest problem with cilantro is that so many cooks who use it operate under the “if a little is good, a lot must be better” rule. I can only take it in small doses.
Thanks, rico. Let me root around and see if I can’t find a question for ya. 
Chalk up 1 undying allegiance. Witness my multiple past threads about my Chipotle addiction.
Here’s my issue. I know the soap-gene thing. Cilantro is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted that is routinely used in actual food, but it doesn’t taste like soap. It tastes like pure evil, which soap does not resemble (as far as I’m aware).
Except there’s a factual answer that was given. Sounds like GQ material to me…
QtM, you are officially my hero. (for a day or so anyway)
I thought I was crazy. I hate it, yes, soap, or worse, yes. No one in my family believed me. I was the only one that tasted it. (sigh) I feel so vindicated. I’m calling my ex husband in the morning!
Some years ago, in an attempt to avoid using pesticides, I took to trapping the stinkbugs that were infesting my rhubarb, rather than spraying them; for some not entirely rational reason, I decided that drowning them in the water butt was a fitting end for such loathsome beasts. They do not drown easily, but during the process, they would always release an oily slick of… welll… stink.
The odour was pretty much exactly that of coriander/cilantro. To this day, I have trouble eating the stuff without thinking of clingy, leggy brown stinkbugs.
Mangetout
Thank you.
I have always wondered what that smell was that cilantro exudes was.
Stink bugs!
Can the lovers of cilantro smell them? Or do stink bugs smell different to them? I am not being snide, Do stink bugs stink for everone?
Dunno, but googling Stink Bug and Coriander does seem to indicate that I’m not the only one to have made the association, indeed, it actually appears to have been named after them (Coriander from Greek Koros=‘bug’).
I have always liked it in restaurant meals and took me ages, using it myself, to discover that most recipes recommend about 3 or 4 times too much for my tastes. I think it works much better, as you say, in small doses.
OTOH, whenever my school has a "taco bar for the teachers, I always load on a ton of cilantro. I’m not the only one who does it, either. I love the stuff.
Ah, there’s the missing piece I was confused on! Cilantro does taste kind of soapy to me, and straight-up, it would be quite unpalatable. But as an incidental ingredient, I find that it can complement other flavors, and I quite like some foods with cilantro in them. I guess I must be a heterozygot.
Same for me. The first time I can recall having cilantro was as a pizza topping at a fusion restaurant. It wasn’t finely chopped or anything – whole cilantro leaves were piled on. I honestly thought that someone in the kitchen had just washed their hands, rinsed poorly, and had drizzled soapy water onto my pizza.
Since then, I’ve learned to appreciate cilantro – in proper proportion – in Mexican and Vietnamese cuisine, and as a beer infusion. Regarding the smell … I find it pleasant <shrug>.
And I think it actually cleared some things up for me. My dad is heterozygotic, I’m sure. He doesn’t much like it but he doesn’t mind some in it. My mom, on the other hand, LOVES cilantro. I think it’s her favourite herb. How could I be homozygotic?
Then I remembered… MY MOM LIKES SOAP GUM TOO. I think she just likes the taste of soap.