February 20, 2009
The Great Cilantro Debate
Cilantro: Love it or hate it. Image courtesy of Flickr/Michael Lehet
With one of the usual Food & Think writers on a thinking strike, I’ve been asked to plug the brain drain for a while. This works out well, since thinking about food is something I do with great frequency, though not all those thoughts are pleasant.
In fact, not to go negative right off the bat, one of the things I most dislike has recently been in the news: cilantro. This innocuous-seeming herb, featured prominently in many of my favorite Asian and Latin American cuisines, looks deceptively like flat-leaf parsley. But to me—and apparently to a lot of others, as a recent story in the Wall Street Journal describes—it tastes like hairspray. Or soap. Or, my favorite, “pungent grass that may have been urinated upon.”
The haters have formed Facebook groups and Web sites, like IHateCilantro.com, where you can buy T-shirts and pillows that proclaim your displeasure.
Even Julia Child, the original gourmet guru, confessed to despising cilantro (and arugula, though I differ with her there) in a 2002 interview with Larry King.
No other flavor can provoke such an intense negative reaction. You can pelt my taste buds with the hottest habanero, the bitterest broccoli rabe, the funkiest Gorgonzola, and I can take it. But slip so much as one sprig of cilantro into my pico de gallo and, ay dios mío, meal over.
Yet, clearly, since it shows up in so many different places, millions of people around the world enjoy the stuff. Its fans claim it has a fresh taste that provides a nice balance to spicy foods.
It may even provide some health benefits. Scientists have found a compound in cilantro that kills Salmonella bacteria, which could lead to it being used as a food additive to prevent food poisoning, or even as a general disinfectant (which is what it already tastes like).
Other researchers have been looking into whether there is a biological basis to the polarized reactions to cilantro’s flavor. Charles J. Wysocki, a behavioral neuroscientist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, in Philadelphia, has been studying identical and fraternal twins to determine whether cilantro aversion is a genetic trait. His early results have shown identical twins to be far more likely than fraternal twins to have a similar opinion of cilantro.
My hope is that one day scientists will develop an antidote to cilantro—something I could carry around in my purse and squeeze a few drops on my food to neutralize the hairspray flavor. Then, I could order a bánh mì or bhel puri without fear.
How do you feel about cilantro? Is there any other flavor that makes you gag?
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I had bought a package of fresh spring mix and as I was happily munching away on the sweet tender leaves and my homemade dressing all of the sudden it tasted as if one of the leaves had been soaked in laundry detergent! I spit it out and tried to find the source by trying every type of green on the plate individually. I finally found it and begged my boyfriend to try it and see if I was crazy. He refused because he doesnt eat anything green. Im glad to know there are others out there.
I wish they would find out why people don’t like cilantro, specifically, and what causes the strange taste. I think it tastes like I would imagine dirty dishes to taste. Anytime it is in a dish, no matter how much is in it, I can smell it. Gag. I don’t consider myself a picky eater, but I just cannot abide cilantro, cumin, fennel, (cooked) broccoli or cauliflower. They all taste and smell like something is rotten or off.
Cilantro ≠ Basil.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123446387388578461.html?mod=ITPWSJ_1
I love cilantro and cumin. Cilantro has a numbing sensation to it and is very fresh tasting. I substitute it for lettuce in tacos sometimes. Cumin is just plain addictive and goes very well in tacos, vinegarette, and chili. It does not taste spicy to me, it is a very full flavor. I also love broccoli, onions, curry, and recently green peppers. I hated green peppers for 45 years and now I really like them which seems very strange to me. I don’t know if there is a genetic component, but I despise tonic water and have tried and tried to drink it. Asparagus is another taste that I can do without along with fennel, anise and black licorice candy. Genetics or preference?
I agree with the stinkbug comment. It has always tasted to me like the green shield-shaped stink bugs in my garden. It is V I L E vile. If there was one leaf in a swimming pool of water I could taste it. It is unfortunate that sometimes the sous chefs make a mistake and get one leaf of cilantro mixed into parsley–which I love. Tabouli or guacamole, for instance, with one leaf of cilantro in it can ruin my whole evening. It also does no use to try to explain how it tastes to me to someone who doesn’t taste it this way.
the very smell of cilantro makes me nauseous and I’m honestly not exaggerating. The first time I discovered cilantro was at a place called ‘pho king’ and it was also the very first time i tried pho. after that didnt eat pho for a good 3 years until my friends birthday. even then couldnt finish the pho because my head was pounding. My taste buds are also VERY sensitive to eat so if a tiny part of the cilantro leaf were to get into my food it would be the ONLY thing i taste in that bite. I just tell restaurants I’m allergic that way they are very careful, sometimes :p
Here in Sweden almost everyone hates cilantro (we call both the leaves and seeds “coriander” in European English though).
This is because there is a local stink bug that smells identical to cilantro, and most people in Sweden are pretty much into picking wild fruit and berries so almost everyone has encountered stink bugs, and they are pretty common too.
I agree that it tastes like the stink bug, but I like it anyway in moderation, which makes me kinda unique among ethnic Swedes, almost only thai people in Sweden eat cilantro. Cilantro grows very well here though so I grow it in my garden because they don’t sell it in most food stores except thai food stores because they might scare away customers.
I usually say “it tastes like stink bug but in a good way”.
Things can have a taste that tastes like something bad, but is still pleasant. For example cooked or “shu” Pu’er tea, it tastes like an old barn with horse dung. So people ask me “why do you drink something that tastes like horse dung?”. I say: “It tastes like horse dung in a good way.”
But too much will be overwhelming.
Cilantro is the most vile tasting herb ever. I cannot stand it, it is the most unpleasant taste that just gets into your sinus cavaties and camps out there.
One taste of it, and my meal is ruined.
I say, down with Cilantro. I don’t like it at all. I can taste it in anything, no matter how little is in the dish. For a long time, I thought it tasted like someone grabbed a handful of grass, dirt and all and mixed it in the food. Now, I think the stink bug is a better description. I never taste soap, but it’s definitely gross.
Oh, and mango’s really do taste like dirty socks. I thought that was just me too!
I absolutely hate cilantro. There should be a law that makes it illegal to put cilantro into anyone’s food without their expressed permission. There are a lot of ignorant people who can’t seem to understand that for those with the anti-cilantro gene, having just a little or trying to mask it doesn’t work. If someone was deathly allergic to nuts, would masking or adding just “a little” of it make the person any less dead after consuming it?
[...] least the little white button ones you get at the supermarket. They rank up there with cilantro on my short list of ingredients I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark restaurant, or a well-lit [...]
I am a cilantro lover but there is a community of people debating about their impassioned views on cilantro at http://bit.ly/eaBend
[...] if you like soap flavor. I’m obviously a hater so I leave it [...]
So glad to discover that I am not the only one who can’t stand cilantro. It physically makes me gag. I don’t know about soap, but the flavor is overwhelming and unbearable for some reason.
I will try anything to eat, but I will pick this out of my food before I eat.
Gross!!!
I cannot believe there is a “I hate cilantro” website and facebook page. I can’t get enough cilantro. I smell it in the veg store while I wait on line to pay! It has an incredibly fresh smell and taste to me. Maybe you are being told you are eating cilantro, and they are slipping something else in! Soap?? Stink bugs?? I don’t get it? Where do you people live? How do you make Salsa without cilantro? I always put it in my salsa and guacomole, and when I make chicken fajitas with peppers, onion, cayenne and CILANTRO. Maybe your tastebuds have been destoyed by too much salt or something!
[...] especially on a hot summer day. But why not at least jazz it up with basil, mint or—though I can’t advocate it—cilantro? It certainly wouldn’t be out of the question to add some vodka to any one of [...]
I don’t dislike the flavor of cilantro but I avoid it because it gives me the most horrible case of indigestion imaginable. I have spent a number of nights awake because of
cilantro being concealed in Thai or Mexican food.
Living in CA means I have to be vigilant about what I eat as it seems to appear in everything served in local restaurants
To me cilantro tastes like soapy dust or dusty soap, or maybe a mixture of dust and that Bitter Yuck stuff you put on things so your dog won’t chew. It also smells like old dust and I can’t stand the smell of it.
I don’t like salsa so that’s no a problem. The only time I have food with cilantro in it is when I go to my favorite Vietnamese place, they put it in the sweet and sour papaya beef salad I like. I can just pick the cilantro pieces out and not eat them though, since it’s a cold salad the flavor hasn’t cooked into the rest of the dish.
Cilantro is POISON!! Nastiest stuff imaginable. I always ask to have it left out of my pho and Mexican food, but they sometimes sneak a “little” in. So many of us hate it (I am of Nordic heritage – maybe that Swedish gardener has a clue there) that I wonder why servers roll their eyes when I ask to leave it out. It should always be “on the side”.
I love the taste of cilantro but it doesn’t love me. I find it addicting but it burns all the way through my digestive system. I think maybe only when it is fresh. Cooked or processed might be okay.
Wow. Thanks for the post and comments. I too think cilantro tastes like soap, and recently have noticed a correlation between my eating it and an allergic reaction. So I went online thinking I was nuts, and voilà, I find all this.
Enough with the debate just because it tastes like soap. It does to me. But that isn’t the real problem. Cilantro lovers think you will “like it if you try it” or “get used to the taste”. I AM ALLERGIC TO IT! If you hide it in my food, or don’t disclose the ingredient, or scrape the sauce back off because you forgot I requested no cilantro, I WILL STILL HAVE AN ALLERGIC REACTION. I start having to clear my throat over and over until I realize that I am having a problem catching my breath and start frantically searching my purse for benadryl. Cilantro is one of the fastest growing food allergies now because it is the “spice du jour” and everyone is hiding it in their food. PLEASE, disclose what is in the food. It could be life or death. It is not just an innocuous ingredient.