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?
It tastes like drinking water from a glass that has been cleaned with dish soap but not rinsed properly and you can taste the residue and distinct smell/taste of soap. I used to have this response as a child but later as an adult the taste completely changed and now I can taste its real flavour.
I had no idea it could change over time, that’s really cool. Makes me wonder what other genetic factors can change like that.
A lot. Genes have a weird ability to activate or deactivate, or simply have a different effect, based on environmental factors.
Look up “Epigenetics”.
Thanks for the new rabbit hole! :D
I couldn’t eat something that had come near cilantro until I was in my 20s. But I was intentional about it. I love Mexican food, but really couldn’t eat it at restaurants because of this so I decided I was going to try an experiment.
I would make a small amount of food at home with a little bit of cilantro and as I cut it up I would inhale deeply and tell myself out loud “this smells delicious. I love this.”
Then I would eat the prepared food and do the same. I did this once a week or so for a few months and eventually the soap taste disappeared. It tastes like delightful fresh herbs now.
See, yes. This is what adults do.
Being grown and refusing to eat something that millions of humans eat every day is, frankly, embarrassing. When I meet any otherwise neurotypical picky eater over the age of 13, all I can think of is, “Christ, grow the fuck up.”
It doesn’t always taste like soap to me. But when it does, it literally tastes like the lather/residue from unscented bar soap. Like if you wash your hands but don’t thoroughly rinse them, then eat finger food. It’s a basic (as opposed to acidic) flavor, that really doesn’t taste like anything other than soap.
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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
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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.
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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)
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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.
I can’t answer your question, because it doesn’t taste like soap to me either. Just as you described, it tastes overwhelmingly strong and unpleasant to me, so I assume I have the gene. I do think sometimes it tastes appropriate buried in amongst other flavors though.
I mean, there can be multiple different gene variations. I have the soap thing and I can’t remember tasting anything other than soap, although admittedly I haven’t tried cilantro in isolation or in enough dishes to be able to tell for sure.
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.
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…
Huh, interesting!
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. 🫠
I’ve been told it tastes milder than parsley and that blew my mind.
While we’re at it, wtf do ants smell like?
Formic acid
Citronella, for some.
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
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.
This is why I only have cilantro flavoured soap
That would be a great scam. Just offer unparfumed soap and some of your customers will never know.
I mean, those customers would also be entirely unlikely to want anything with cilantro in it, but you know, I’m sure there’s someone you could fool.
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.
I don’t know about the gene, and I do like cilantro. However there are times when I can understand how it tastes soapy to people. It does have a bitterness to it, and combined with its very aromatic nature, it reminds me of soap at times.
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
I’ve never tasted soap, so I don’t know that that’s the taste I get, but it’s nasty and ruins whatever I’m eating. I won’t even walk in a Chipotle. Jerks. One thing I’ve noticed over the years is the stems are the worst part. Something that’s cooked with cilantro or has the occasional leaf is okay, but one bite of a stem and I’m done.
