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?
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.