Cilantro and/or Coriander - Soap-Tasting Herbs

[SpessCaptain]

Who here hates Cilantro/Coriander?

Some people taste the herb as a soapy overwhelming taste or "crushed bugs".

Tell me about how many pho meals, curries and etc. have been ruined by this "herb"

 

[millais]

I hate cilantro/coriander but I still eat pho and curry in spite of it's horrible taste. The reason why it tastes like soap to me is that I inherited the homozygous recessive genotype for taste buds perceiving coriander flavor as vomit-inducingly bitter. My grandfather also has the recessive genotype, but everyone else in my family either doesn't have the gene or is simply a non-expressing carrier for it, so they don't mind the taste at all. When I was younger, I would literally vomit at the faintest taste of coriander, but I've learned to suppress the gag reflex over the years to the point that I can stomach the taste although it still makes me very queasy and ruins whatever food I am eating.

It's just a bad luck of the genetic lottery if coriander tastes like soap to you. Everyone else thinks you're just a picky eater, which is bullshit, because it's literally one gene that controls whether your taste buds perceiver coriander flavor as a normal herb or like soap. You can even trace the recessive gene's expression through your family tree to find out exactly which ancestor to blame for your inability to enjoy coriander, it's not one of those polygenic multi-allele clusterfucks.

 

[Pikimon]

I love cilantro in ceviche and carne asada tacos.

It tastes fresh and springy to me so I probably don't have the soapy-taste gene.

 

[VJ 120]

I love cilantro. It tastes like citrus to me. I could actually eat it in place of lettuce on certain things. I honestly feel very bad for people who don't enjoy its taste

 

[Ariel]

I love it

 

[Tehshigelisok]

I think the first time I ever had it was when a half-Mexican friend of my mother's cooked some food that had cilantro in it. I could taste the soapy taste. I must've developed a tolerance for it, because it no longer has the soap taste to me.

And I'm glad I did, because I fucking LOVE Mexican food of any kind.

 

[c-no]

I never had pho outside of some instant noodles (which tasted much better than ramen thanks to the fact it came with sriracha). Still, I pretty much had cilantro in some carne asada burritos. At first I didn't like the taste but I got use to it to the point that I don't mind eating it in a burrito.

 

[nonnewtonian]

I hate cilantro. Smells great but tastes like soap. I can tolerate it in dishes when very little is used and there are stronger flavors to help mask it, but otherwise keep that shit off my plate.

 

[AnOminous]

Who here hates Cilantro/Coriander?

Some people taste the herb as a soapy overwhelming taste or "crushed bugs".

Tell me about how many pho meals, curries and etc. have been ruined by this "herb"

I used to hate cilantro when I was 12 or so. Since I grew up, though, it's wonderful.

This is a really blatant example of something changing its taste, though, because when I was a kid, I hated it specifically because it tasted like soap. It just doesn't taste like soap to me any more, though.

I don't blame people for hating it, because if it still tasted like it did to me when I was a kid, I would never eat anything containing it.

If you never had it, though, since you were a kid, and you're 30 or something, give it another shot. It really does taste different.

I love cilantro. It tastes like citrus to me. I could actually eat it in place of lettuce on certain things. I honestly feel very bad for people who don't enjoy its taste

I definitely have the so-called gene for tasting it as soap, because I used to, and long before I even knew of the gene, the first thing I said when tasting something that had a lot of cilantro on it was to freak out and say that it tasted like soap.

Comparing my sensations of it now, though, to my memories, it still tastes the same, but for some reason, I now like the taste.

 

[SpessCaptain]

I used to hate cilantro when I was 12 or so. Since I grew up, though, it's wonderful.

This is a really blatant example of something changing its taste, though, because when I was a kid, I hated it specifically because it tasted like soap. It just doesn't taste like soap to me any more, though.

I don't blame people for hating it, because if it still tasted like it did to me when I was a kid, I would never eat anything containing it.

If you never had it, though, since you were a kid, and you're 30 or something, give it another shot. It really does taste different.

It was the reverse for me, I loved it as a kid and then one day I was at a friends house and went "this taste like soap" and they were like wtf man. Haha it wasn't years until I realised it was the Coriander after I found a fresh sprig of it and ate it.

 

[XYZpdq]

I don't think it tastes like soap, it just tastes like they use way too goddamn much. Because seriously guys dial it back about fifty because I wanted salsa not cilantro guest-starring tomatoes.

 

[melty]

I like cilantro. One of my favorite smoothies contains pineapple, apple, a generous amount of cilantro, and some other stuff I forget (something creamy, frozen bananas maybe)
I think @AnOminous is onto something, my boyfriend used to hate cilantro (his father still loathes it) but after introducing him to cilantro smoothies and other dishes he actually loves it now. Strange.