Life Sciences Why some people dislike cilantro, explained

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Spang

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Cilantro tastes like soap to approximately 10% of the people who have had their genotype analyzed by 23andMe. The currently accepted explanation is that those of us who passionately despise cilantro were born with a genetic variant known as a single-nucleotide polymorphism (or SNP, pronounced ‘snip’).
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“Gee, I smell cilantro, lalala, happiness” your brain will warn you of the real danger you face: “I smell the disgusting herb that poisons everything good and loveworthy in this world. Run for your life!”

That's me, lol.
 
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I like coriander/cilantro with certain foods. However, I find that it has a really distinctive taste and does not pair with everything.

One of the most awful tasting spices to my mind is cardamom which I find has a distinct taste of perfume. :ttth:
 
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shyvas said:
I like coriander/cilantro with certain foods. However, I find that it has a really distinctive taste and does not pair with everything.

One of the most awful tasting spices to my mind is cardamom which I find has a distinct taste of perfume. :ttth:
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I hate cilantro. I can only tolerate it in small doses if it is not a prominent flavor in whatever food I have ordered.
On the contrary, I LOVE cardamom, especially in Indian desserts. The herb I hate because it tastes like perfume is Jasmine. I try to sample Jasmine tea and it reminds me of soap for old people.
 
I love cilantro, it's good added to almost everything. Everything except bread dough. :no: Baked into bread dough the flavor changes into something horrible.
 
My mom discovered cilantro a long time ago and started using it in ALL her cooking. I didn't like it at first, but since it was in practically everything I had to eat, I learned to like it. ;) But it does taste a little bit like soap to me.
 
"The science of smell is fascinatingly complex and not entirely understood, but the current hypothesis is that having a C instead of an A in a specific location close to the OR6A2 gene, slightly alters the shape of the receptor molecule encoded by that gene, and allows cilantro molecules to activate receptors that in the rest of the population are only activated by soap/bleach/death molecules."

It's nice to know the explanation. I think there are degrees of this: cilantro does taste noticeably soapy to me but I wouldn't say it tastes like death. I once ordered a burrito at a Mexican/Caribbean restaurant and they went pretty heavy on the cilantro, but I ate it anyway.

I've often asked people who like this herb to describe its flavor, so that I could figure out a substitute of other herbs which would make a dish with cilantro as an ingredient taste "right" to me, instead of tasting like I squirted a few drops of dishwashing liquid into my food. Sometimes they say it tastes "fresh", or even that it has a hint of citrus taste- something I would LOVE to eat. But they almost always answer that cilantro tastes like cilantro, and that they like it. I guess it has a unique taste, for good or for ill.
 
I don't really like it. There's a certain type of soup that they make at the nursing home I work in, and when we serve it, I can smell the cilantro, I immediately think: "Ugh, I don't think I would like that soup". I don't eat any of the soups they make anyway because they are all made with meat broth, but they usually all smell nice, except for that one. Smells kinda soapy.
 
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