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?
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.
Take the smell of dawn dish soap diluted into water. That’s what it tastes like.
While we’re at it, wtf do ants smell like?
Citronella, for some.
Formic acid
It tastes like metal to me - not soap
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
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.
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 doesn’t taste soapy to me, but more like bug spray that I accidentally got in my mouth as a kid. Weirdly chemically
I hate cilantro but I’m unsure if I have the supposed “cilantro tastes like soap gene”. To me, it just feels like chunks of cardboard or plastic in my food that shouldn’t be there. I tried it two or three times then stopped using it in my cooking. However, I like storebought salsa that contains cilantro so apparently I don’t mind it if it’s cut into really tiny pieces
Coffee tastes exactly like hot wet loam to me. I detested the flavor.
I’m a grown ass man, and I fucking hate coffee.
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
Your taste buds also dull over time, so strong flavors get weaker.
many tastes change over time. certain foods are really sharp to children in unpleasant ways, but to an adult they are more mellow and nuanced.
Right, I know this from experience. I was talking about the genes thing which I have been informed is Epigenetics (thanks Crankenstein!)
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.”
When I met am otherwise neurological adult who gets hung up on what others choose to do with their free will, all I can think is “grow the fuck up”
I’ve got a cousin who gets upset about what I choose to eat. I don’t even understand where someone like that is coming from.
Cater to them in a family of otherwise normal eaters, and get back to us about how understanding you are.
Having allergic reactions is one thing; being fussy is another thing entirely.
Just don’t. Why would you? We’re talking about adults
It’s probably less about what you choose to eat and more about the fact that picky eaters are, in a larger sense (and without exception) some combination of childish, incurious, self-absorbed, inflexible, and boring.
Do they also eat children?
Didn’t say they were evil. A lot of otherwise decent people have simply never had a reason to outgrow their toddler brains.
I experience the soap taste, not with cilantro but with certain beers. There’s a local brewery I go to that makes a certain beer that tastes like soap for me, like the smell(?) / aftertaste of a wax candle. It happens every time. And when I order a different beer, it’s gone. It’s not the glass. Drives me crazy not knowing what the heck it is lol. A genetic quirk I guess. Always a light colored beer, never dark. My partner thinks it’s some of the yeast notes.
I have the cilantro soap gene and blue moon beer tastes like dishwashing detergent to me.
Likely some variety of hops they use in that beer. Cilantro apprently share some flavor compounds with hops.
My one that I share with my mom is that jalapeños taste like mold. I don’t get it with other kinds of peppers, and vinegar will mask it so pickled jalapeño or hot sauces with it are usually okay. But it’s always just a bit there.
I have a really weird one where shandy (beer mixed with lemonade) smells like rubber to me. Like when you rub a balloon really hard.
You guys can smell balloons being rubbed, right? 😅
Mosaic hops do something similar for me. I nearly vomit any time I have a beer brewed with them, so not really trying many new IPAs these days unless they got the hops listed.
The flavor to your immature taste buds wasn’t real?
There is the thing as it exists and then the thing as I perceive it. I’d say I’m tasting the more accurate version of it today but it probably is still debatable.
What something tastes like is part of your perception of it though. It’s an interaction that is based as much on the tongue doing the tasting as the substance being tasted.
I don’t think either way you tasted it was more “real” or “accurate”, but could be closer to what the majority of people experience.
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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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.
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.
