posted
Comment: My mother said that she heard that the reason that people either love or hate cilantro is genetic. That the taste buds either find it a wonderful pungent herb, or (as is our case), it taste like eating lemon scented soap.
Posts: 36029 | From: Admin | Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Absolute rot - some people like it, others do not, it's the same with all strong tastes, what possible reason could there be for being genetically predisposed to like or dislike aromatic herbs?
I don't like it but I don't taste it any differently than anybody else - my Mum and Da can't get enough of it so we have to argue before we can go for Thai food
-------------------- This is where I come up with something right? Something really clever... Posts: 6552 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
But there is a genetic component to taste, Jay Tea. If cruciferous vegetables can taste different to people with different genetic programming, why not cilantro?
posted
We're back to the ol' 'super-tasting' thing again. Well, if cilantro contains phenylthiocarbamide then i'll concede it could be down to genetics in some cases, but I still maintain whether you like cilantro or not is down to 'regular tasting' 99.9% of the time - interesting stuff though - but if genetics 'does' make the difference as far as enjoying the taste of aromatic herbs is concerned, how come my folks love the stuff and I shun it? Am I adopted?
-------------------- This is where I come up with something right? Something really clever... Posts: 6552 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2002
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quote:But there is a genetic component to taste, Jay Tea. If cruciferous vegetables can taste different to people with different genetic programming, why not cilantro?
It may be true that genetics cause people to "taste" cilantro differently, but whether people are genetically wired to like (or dislike) cilantro, however it tastes to them, is another matter. How much of our taste is cultural, and how much of it is genetic programming that causes us to seek out (or avoid) certain tastes?
My senses tell me that kimchee is absolutely noxious, but if I had grown up in a Korean household I'm sure I'd have a very different reacton to it.
posted
I was not raised in a Korean household, and I never tried kimchee until I came to Japan at age 22. However, I can't get enough of the stuff.
But then again, ever since I was little I've always liked spicy foods, as well as sour pickled things (dill pickles, sauerkraut etc.), so maybe it's not that surprising.
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damsa
The Red and the Green Stamps
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Having grown up in a Korean household, even I find kimchee noxious. But nothing compares to chung gu chang.
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posted
I love experimenting with herbs and love just about all kinds of pungent leafy things. However, cilantro does indeed taste like lemon soap to me. It's not so much even the taste - I get a sensation like having a surfactant on my tongue. Blech.
Posts: 2655 | From: MO USA | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
I don't like the SMELL of fresh cilantro. I guess the taste (at least dried) doesn't bother me and I've never had a problem eating stuff with cilantro in it... I don't use it fresh, though. Unfortunately my pet rabbit loves the stuff, and after carrying it around it's hard to get rid of the smell on my hands, bleh.
I like some kimchee but not others. I never had it until I was about 16 either. I also always loved sour foods like pickles but I can't stand spicy food.
-------------------- Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. Posts: 2110 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I don't like the smell either, but to me salsa isn't salsa without it.
-------------------- It's like they took a bunch of movies, put them in a blender and turned it on really fast!-Mystery Science Theater 3000 Posts: 2603 | From: Magna, Utah | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I agree with snopes; if you get such tastes from your parents, it's more an "acquired taste" thing than genetic programming.
And just to editorialize, cilantro is probably in my top five food smells, and easily beats out chocolate and other sweet things. When I was bagging at Albertsons, I used to say that if every order I bagged included a bundle of cilantro I'd never have any job stress.
-Tabby the princess with claws
-------------------- If you don't appreciate the irony, the irony appreciates.
"Sappiness and medieval violence: it's a wonderful combination. Like chocolate and peanut butter for the mind." -me on my fantasy novel-in-progress Posts: 2281 | From: Arizona | Registered: Apr 2002
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Cubism artist
The Red and the Green Stamps
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This is merely anecdotal, but my brother didn't like cilantro, if he noticed a little leaf, he wouldn't eat that meal. Now he has changed his tastes and eat tacos and salsa with a good amount of cilantro.Have his genetics changed? I don't think so.
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posted
Well I don't like salsa at all so that's not a problem for me!
Oh yeah I also forgot to mention in my other post, I'm half Italian.
-------------------- Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. Posts: 2110 | From: Chicago, IL | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
on the cilantro front, (i love it, btw), why is it people say it's "spicy"? i equate spicy with hot peppers. even black pepper in abundance. all of which i like.
i think i'm missing something.
-------------------- "we're going to need to take a piece of this back to the lab."
Cilantro is classed as a herb, though it's seeds are classed as a spice, coriander. Any blurring of the two is gastronomic confusion - the leaf of the plant is simply 'not' a spice, or therefore 'spicy'.
-------------------- This is where I come up with something right? Something really clever... Posts: 6552 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2002
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posted
Oooohh, CORIANDER... I wondered what you were all talking about... I just call the leafy stuff "fresh coriander".
Commander Coriander Salamander and 'er Single Hander Belly-Lander
-------------------- I want you to lay down your life, Perkins. We need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war. Posts: 4495 | From: Surrey, UK | Registered: Jun 2000
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steventoo
The Red and the Green Stamps
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see, here I was having no idea that: A. There are people who actually DON'T like cilantro, and B. Coriander seeds are related to cilantro.
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amylou2230
The Red and the Green Stamps
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Blech! I seriously dislike cilantro. I live in Southeast Texas where Mexican and Texmex food is a staple. I love it and other spicey foods as well. I have no idea why I can't stand the cilantro though. I'll make do if I cant order food without it, but I'd rather have it sans cilantro.
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quote:Originally posted by Jason Threadslayer: Coriander, cilantro, Mexican parsley, Chinese parsley, and dhania are all the same plant.
...And I love them all!
-------------------- Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong - Oscar Wilde Posts: 30 | From: Mechelen, Belgium | Registered: May 2005
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Ferret
The Red and the Green Stamps
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I don't know how anyone could hate cilantro, much less love texmex and mexican without it. It is required to make that distinct flavour, even if usually in authentic Mex it comes with onions (blech).
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posted
'I don't know how anyone could hate cilantro'
It's because some people think it tastes like some god-awful weed somebody ripped at random froma hedgerow. It's very presence ruins food for me and I can say that about no other food-flavour. Just because you appreciate the flavour of this green hell doesn't mean you shouldn't be able to contemplate others who don't.
Fot the record, I don't hate it - I just don't want to eat it
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Ferret
The Red and the Green Stamps
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Personally these people confuse me, but that's because I've never met anyone in person who hates cilantro.
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Why does it 'confuse' you that someone else might not enjoy the same tastes as you? Regardless of whether or not you have met anybody who dislikes it, what part of 'tastes differ' do you find so difficult to comprehend?
Are you under the impression that the orgiastic taste sensation that is cilantro is far too wonderous for anybody to possibly turn their noses up at? Because it tastes like shit to me....
I've never met anybody that puts lemonade in malt whisky, and while the idea horrifies me, I know and 'understand' that some folk do...
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FrozenChosen
The Red and the Green Stamps
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I used to hate cilantro - the smell, the taste - it reminded me of freshly cut grass. While I love the smell of freshly cut grass, it's not something I ever wanted to think about eating.
I first enjoyed cilantro in a sauce for fish tacos from Rachel Ray's low carb show on Food TV. It's wonderful and I make it all the time now - I have a bottle of it in the frige getting all infused for today's halibut tacos.
I have also extrapolated on the recipe, adding mashed avacado and using it as a salad dressing.
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Art Vandelay
The Red and the Green Stamps
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quote:Originally posted by FrozenChosen: I used to hate cilantro - the smell, the taste - it reminded me of freshly cut grass. While I love the smell of freshly cut grass, it's not something I ever wanted to think about eating.
I first enjoyed cilantro in a sauce for fish tacos from Rachel Ray's low carb show on Food TV. It's wonderful and I make it all the time now - I have a bottle of it in the frige getting all infused for today's halibut tacos.
I was reading one of Nigel Slater's cookbooks the other day, and he mentioned that cilantro is often an acquired taste; you can go from hating the stuff to suddenly loving it and wondering how you ever lived without it.
Personally I think it's vile, but maybe someday I'll have such a conversion. I doubt it though.
AltaCirrus, an acid rain cloud
The Red and the Green Stamps
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totally out of context, but worth mentioning somehow...
I once saw the word "cilantro" on a menu in a Thai restaurant that was written as "salancho".
Alta "your IQ just went down two points" Cirrus
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Ferret
The Red and the Green Stamps
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To Jay Tea: When I say, "I don't understand", it's a figure of speech. I have the brain power to contemplate it, but it seems strange to me and, as I've said before, have never met anyone who doesn't like what you call "green hell". And as I said, it is an important part of Tex Mex and Mexican food. It makes little sense to like those types of food and not cilantro. So you should have the brain power to understand where I am coming from. I shouldn't have had to write this post, and you shouldn't have had to write your last post. Leave it at that, you annoying A-Hole.
quote:Originally posted by Ferret: To Jay Tea: When I say, "I don't understand", it's a figure of speech. I have the brain power to contemplate it, but it seems strange to me and, as I've said before, have never met anyone who doesn't like what you call "green hell". And as I said, it is an important part of Tex Mex and Mexican food. It makes little sense to like those types of food and not cilantro.
And yet somehow you are able to enjoy it even though you don't like onions
quote:Originally posted by Ferret: I don't know how anyone could hate cilantro, much less love texmex and mexican without it. It is required to make that distinct flavour, even if usually in authentic Mex it comes with onions (blech).
posted
Jaysus don't cry Ferret - i'm just calling you on some of your lexical choice, nothing more. It's logical and fair enough to point out some of the agrandising and unsound statements you happily make (Boy I hope you stick around on this board).
Here's another one
It makes little sense to like those types of food and not cilantro.
What absolute self-centred crap. You call me an 'A-hole' (how subtle, how cutting and witty, why i'm practically bleeding ) and yet you are the one full of sh*t.
I've wined and dined on Mexican food, in and around Mexico and it's environs, eating authentic, locally prepared food, and was seldom troubled by cilantro, certainly asking for food without it was no trouble when it was apparent - does this experience 'make little sense' to you? If so I move it's because your own experience is narrow, sheltered, yet somehow all-important in your mind. I makes 'little sense' to me that an entire cuisine would be riddled with a herb that let's face it is somewhat contentious in the like/don't like department.
Anyway, sorry to raise your blood-pressure so much over a leafy aromatic. In the meantime i'll 'get over' what I need to when I choose - I don't need advice on emotional recovery from a poster who wets themselves when a bad man talks at them in long sentences, and as for being an 'a-hole', well, I think my earlier riposte will suffice - for now.
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posted
*snort* Jay Tea, if I weren't already involved with someone I would have proposed to you just now.
Um, another Tex-Mex/Mexican food lover here who despises cilantro. In fact, I have to ask, Jay, does it make you feel ill? Because just last night my lad and I went out for Tex-Mex and both ended up feeling rather ill. The only thing we could figure we had in common was the salsa. That particular salsa was quite heavy with cilantro. *shudder*
Speaking of having these foods without cilantro...I don't think that's a problem. In fact, we made salsa a while back and added no cilantro. Just some parsley and the appropriate other ingredients. It was fantastic and didn't have that nasty after-taste of soap.
It is absolutely possible to love all kinds of foods and not enjoy cilantro. I find it difficult to understand how someone can find it difficult to understand people who don't like cilantro.
-------------------- 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. That is when the world will end. Posts: 7158 | From: D.C. | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Love cilantro (got some growing in the back garden for salsa purposes), but it totally defies brushing, flossing, and gallons of mouthwash. I can see how encountering it when you didn't want to could be a miserable experience.
-------------------- ~~Ai am in mai prrrrrraime!~~ Posts: 10111 | From: Oklahoma | Registered: Sep 2004
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guruwan2b
Ding Dong! Merrily on High Definition TV
posted
Even though I like cilantro, I have eaten at some establishments that go by the "more is better" school of thought. That I have to disagree with. You certainly can overdo the cilantro. A little bit goes a long way. And Jay Tea, I definitely wouldn't call you an A-hole. You would be on my A+hole list...
-------------------- Too much of this navel gazing and we'll disappear up our own arses. Danvers Carew Posts: 7465 | From: Oklahoma | Registered: Oct 2001
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posted
It doesn't make me feel ill Ali' primarily because I seldom swallow it - if I get some in my mouth, say in a Thai meal, it doesn't stay there long - I guess if i'd ever did swallow a lot I may feel sick - certainly the thought makes me feel queasy
Basically i'm an expert at spotting the stuff. I don't even mind it in hot and sour soup, so long as the leaf itself doesn't get in my mouth - one chew and 'ugh'
guruwan2b
And Jay Tea, I definitely wouldn't call you an A-hole. You would be on my A+hole list...
*pride*
-------------------- This is where I come up with something right? Something really clever... Posts: 6552 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Jay Tea: It doesn't make me feel ill Ali' primarily because I seldom swallow it - if I get some in my mouth, say in a Thai meal, it doesn't stay there long - I guess if i'd ever did swallow a lot I may feel sick - certainly the thought makes me feel queasy
are we still talking about herbs here
little mrs
-------------------- once known as little miss
"I don't Pretend to be an ordinary Housewife" Elizabeth Taylor Posts: 2416 | From: London | Registered: Feb 2002
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