I’ve been wondering for a while now if I might have that gene or whether Cilantro is just a herb i dislike. I can stomach dishes with cilantro in them, but it just stings through everything. No matter how little was put in, it tastes to me like somebody over-cilantro’d the dish. I’ve never eaten anything where I thought “Mmmh, yes, there’s a subtle hint of cilantro” - it’s always “Oh, there’s the cilantro, and it’s just too strong”.
But whenever I read about this online, people say that it tastes like soap. It’s been a couple of years since I was toddler enough to just put soap in my mouth. But in my mind, the taste of soap is mostly bitter, with an overwhelming tropical/fruity/citrussy flavor of whatever the producers decided to make the soap smell like. I also imagine it having a really unpleasant texture/mouthfeel. I have no urge to try eating soap, just so I can compare it with the taste of a herb. And I assume that most people with the Cilantro-gene also haven’t made an actual taste-comparison. So hence my question: In what way does anything - but cilantro in particular - taste like soap?
While we’re at it, wtf do ants smell like?
Citronella, for some.
Formic acid
I’ve always thought soap was the wrong comparison, but I definitely have the gene that makes it awful.
Cilantro is loaded with acetyl groups, and sensitivity to those is what defines the taste. Soap is also full of acetyls, but different ones I guess? What hits much closer to target is stink bugs. The gunk they secrete to make their distinctive stink has many of the same acetyl groups as cilantro.
With our sense of smell tied so strongly to our sense of taste, you kind of know what something tastes like just from getting a whiff, with a few exceptions (looking at you, vanilla extract… you fucking liar).
Anyway, a more accurate comparison would be that cilantro tastes like stink bugs. Or specifically, cilantro tastes like the smell of sink bugs.
I can stomach dishes with cilantro in them, but it just stings through everything. No matter how little was put in, it tastes to me like somebody over-cilantro’d the dish.
Same. The taste of cilantro ranges from bad to intolerable. If there’s just a tiny bit of it in there, it tastes only mildly bad; scale it up and the dish is ruined in a hurry.
Pro tip:
You’ve probably already noticed that “please no cilantro” will fall on deaf ears when placing an order at most restaurants. “I have an allergy to cilantro - please make sure there’s none in my food.” will get you MUCH better results.
If faced with skepticism, give them the spiel about acetyl groups and that those are the source of the allergy. Your symptoms are itchy sensation on the tongue, soreness on the roof of your mouth, constriction/wheezing in your throat, and nausea that kicks in later.
You’ll be amazed how rarely they ‘forget’ not to defile your meal with that rancid shit.
Pro tip: You’ve probably already noticed that “please no cilantro” will fall on deaf ears when placing an order at most restaurants. “I have an allergy to cilantro - please make sure there’s none in my food.” will get you MUCH better results.
Please don’t do this.
It makes servers and cooks feel like customers are lying to them when someone tells them they have an allergy. So when some little kid with a life-threatening nut allergy comes in, they might not get taken seriously.
The other issue is that with an allergy (vs a food preference) many kitchens are required to use completely different pots and pans and utensils, gumming up the line, because even a speck of an allergen can cause serious harm.
I can’t stand cilantro either and I’m agreeing that it sucks when restaurants ignore you and should send the food back each time. Just please don’t make it harder for people with life-threatening allergies.
It makes servers and cooks feel like customers are lying to them when someone tells them they have an allergy.
Then they shouldn’t ignore customers to begin with
I’ll do what works. Requesting they don’t add it on the basis of preference results in a plate full of cilantro about half the times I attempt it. Sending it back generally gets it corrected on the next attempt, but not only does that force you into the awkward position of asking to send it back, it also leaves you at a table full of people eating their meals having a good time while you just sit there and wait. Around the time the rest of your party is done eating, your food arrives, and now everyone else of waiting for you.
Fuck it. Cilantro will kill me. Please prepare the food with the appropriate sense of urgency. Idgaf if it gums up the line - that’s the result of them not having their shit together countless times previously. The alternative gums up my entire evening, and I’ve dealt with that enough times.
That’s also on them if they don’t take other allergies seriously. They’re not my fucking doctor - if I tell them I have an allergy, then I have an allergy. Nearly anything can be an allergen, and their job is to accept that information at face value, not audit the diagnosis.
Listen, you seem like a reasonable person and have some kind of medical-sounding username, so I will re-emphasize this: it’s a medical issue. Little kids (and even grown adults) with severe food allergies have a big struggle in getting taken seriously. I have had to take two separate people to the ER for anaphylaxis from food allergies, both seemed so minor and both turned out to have been life-threatening. One was a toddler.
You can make a small positive difference in their lives by inconveniencing yourself here.
I agree that it’s the fault of the restaurant and not yours that it’s like this, and I agree that they should be more vigilant with all allergies.
But unintended victims of crying wolf isn’t so much you or the restaurant workers, it’s allergic people who might die.
I hear you, but granting medical literacy to someone who’s already so far gone as to turn a blind eye to a nut allergy is way beyond anything my own actions or inactions will influence. You’re asking me to try to fix stupid in a society that can’t even be bothered to accept that measles = bad; or that it’s worth covering your face in the middle of a global pandemic. That kid with the nut allergy is fucked - not because some chef was desensitized by a cilantro allergy claim, but because the chef is a fucking moron who doesn’t believe in or care about food allergies.
Hell, think of it like a drill - they get to practice their allergen cross contamination prevention protocols, and if they fuck up I can give them feedback by asking for some Benadryl. Then when the nut allergy kid comes in, they’ll remember their mistake! Win win! …also cilantro allergy IS a thing. I have no idea if it relates to acetyls - that was just some plausible-sounding basis pulled out of my ass to use as ammo in the face of skepticism - but there ARE people who have anaphylactic reactions to cilantro, so again, consider my BS a drill / awareness training.
Saving lives, AND meals! Hooray!
Reminds me of my own issue with parmesan cheese in things; I taste a vomit smell and just a little will make it bad to intolerable. I followed a recipe that added a sprinkle to a large pot of soup and to be the whole thing just tasted like vomit soup. My wife didn’t notice at all. I think I’m sensitive to butyric acid, the shared factor between the two.
I’ll use your stink bug example in the future when cilantro comes up, though, especially since so many people I know love cilantro and can’t imagine (and to be fair it’s very good without said gene, lol)
parmesan tastes like delicious cheesy vomit
You must hate Hershey’s chocolate
Hershey’s is objectively vile though. It’s just that you Americans are used to absolutely shit quality foods.
Whoa! Is that why I hate Hershey’s? I don’t mind their dark but the milk one is awful lol
Yup, their signature flavor is due to butyric acid. Much of the western world thinks Hershey’s tastes like vomit
Of all things I have in common with people outside the US, somehow that’s one of my favorites, haha. I think your comment made my day, lol
They use a lot of similar compounds to those found in vomit
Including vomit, probably
When I was younger and didn’t know what cilantro was, I couldn’t understand why no one in my family agreed with me that stink bugs smelled like, “some kind of herb.”
When I finally figured out what cilantro was and why I didn’t like it, I went digging into stink bug stink and realized precisely why.
Take the smell of dawn dish soap diluted into water. That’s what it tastes like.
As a kid, my mother actually did the completely stupid cliche of “washing your mouth out with soap” when I said a “bad word”, so I know exactly what soap tastes like (this being cheap bar soap like Irish Spring, Zest, etc). And cilantro really does taste pretty close to that to me.
Irish spring for me. It got in and around my molars and I tasted that for hours.
Yep, same here, once it was between your teeth you were not getting rid of that taste for a long while.
thats so fucked up. sorry you went through that abuse.
Nobody should be forced to eat cilantro
lol
Palmolive. That’s what it tasted like to me when I went looking for it.
I once ate a handful of cilantro to see if I could taste it, and I could, a little bit. Then I swore not to do that again because normally, I love cilantro.
It doesn’t taste soapy to me, but more like bug spray that I accidentally got in my mouth as a kid. Weirdly chemically
Soap tastes like cilantro on account of the simple fact that cilantro existed first. Not the other way around. If you’re going to eat soap some people say it tastes like cilantro.
I do think there’s something strange with how you taste it. My partner and I both love cilantro and will eat it in abundance, no issue.
Fwiw, I have a weird taste sensitivity to all seafood. I can sense the tiniest amount of seafood in a dish because it ruins the whole thing. I’ve learned that most people don’t taste seafood like that, so something like fish oil in kimchi doesn’t taste like you licked a room temperature anchovy.
Eating a piece of cilantro while I type this. To me, it starts with a fresh but subtle flavor that then intensifies until it feels like looking directly at a light, then it dies down with the aftertaste of grass clippings
I think your reaction to seafood is normal. It does contaminate everything. I love seafood but drop one shrimp in an ocean of soup and it’s suddenly shrimp soup
Keep in mind, just because it doesn’t taste like soap to you, doesn’t mean you should like it. People have their own unique tastes. I, for instance, don’t like most fish, and think that describing a thing as what it is - means it’s bad - is a weird thing: “this fish is fishy” = gross. “This chicken is chickeny” = delicious.
All that said, you just don’t like cilantro, that’s fine. My wife doesn’t like strawberries. I can’t understand it, but I accept it.
It is a chemical aftertaste. Like a weak soap or maybe even an unscented air freshener. I can eat the food if there isn’t much cilantro in it.
Only partially related, why does no one talk about what it tastes like when you don’t have the gene? Nobody told me it’s like spicy mint! I was expecting something mild like basil or something. But no, it’s overpowering.
I had the chance to try it for the first time a few months ago when I discovered a local restaurant sells Bahi Mi with cilantro and pickled carrots. Its delicious, but I was not expecting that flavor.
To my taste, it’s extremely fresh and vegetal. Kind of in a similar way to how lime, cucumber, or jalapeno are.
I’m a bit puzzled by both the spicy and mint comparisons you make.
I think lime, cucumber and jalapeño is a pretty good descriptor. Lime and cucumber just taste a lot like mint to me.
Fresh is also a good description. It makes my mouth feel clean just like mint does.
I think, people are largely not aware that genetic differences can affect the taste so much, so they just assume that everyone experiences the same taste, just with different preferences for different tastes.
But yeah, when I learned that cumin is another candidate for genetic differences in taste perception, I also had to ask a friend to describe the taste, because I’ve never seen the taste described anywhere. For me, it just tastes extremely hollow, while it’s apparently a rather rich taste for other folks…
The taste of a spice like cumin will be highly dependent on the age of the seed and if it is ground or not. Ground spices oxidize quickly and lose a lot of volatile compounds which contribute to their depth. To taste cumin properly, it is best to lightly toast whole cumin seeds and then crush/ grind them. The difference between the store bought ground cumin is night and day.
I’m not saying, that the taste isn’t strong enough for me. I’m saying that it actively adds a taste, which I can best describe as “hollow”. Falafel or hummus with cumin tastes worse to me than without…
I apologize, I understand your point now. Thanks.
Ah, no worries! Taste is hard to describe. 🫠
Huh, interesting!
I’ve been told it tastes milder than parsley and that blew my mind.
It tastes like metal to me - not soap
Coffee tastes exactly like hot wet loam to me. I detested the flavor.
I’m a grown ass man, and I fucking hate coffee.
But in my mind, the taste of soap is mostly bitter, with an overwhelming tropical/fruity/citrussy flavor of whatever the producers decided to make the soap smell like.
You’ve never encountered a bar of unscented soap? The stuff that’s made by boiling fat, lye and water? You know, soap?
I hate cilantro and other things like horseradish and wasabi but like I love jalepeno and popeye spicy chicken so its not just a heat thing. Anyway for me cilantro tastes like dirt and horseradish/wasabi just has this nasty taste. Funny thing is cilantro has become so popular I have developed a kind of resistance to it. Like I can eat something with cilantro but it will bring it down. I used to take one bite of something with cilantro and had to find something to get the taste out of my mouth. A really funny thing was I sepent a massive amount of time thinking I hated avocado because I only incountered it in guacomole which as far as I can tell always has cilantro. Man when I had just some avocado on something I was like. holy fuckin trump, this is awesome.
