The video was fun. When you have your DNA tested, you learn these things. :-)

My son and daughter-in-law love cilantro, and grow it. However, I'm in the soap camp.

I recently had my DNA tested and there is in fact a gene that is believed to be associated with it. I love cilantro. I think I was a one carrier of each if I am remembering correctly. Same with the bitter gene, one carrier of each. I love most bitter veggies but coffee is the most disgusting bitter thing I've ever tasted. If you carry two of the bitter the chemicals in bitter foods you can taste more than someone who only has one bitter gene or none at all. As we age the ability to taste bitter lessens. That's why kids often have an aversion to things like broccoli. It's not because it's a food that is good for them, it's that for many kids the taste actually is disgusting.

I just looked up my results and these are the markers that they so far believe play a role in detection rs2741762 and rs3930459, just incase someone wants to read up on it a little more. The first marker I am heterozygous (meaning I carry one of each), the second I am homozygous for not being able to detect it. I get very excited about genetics. LOL I just find it so fascinating and you gotta have a little more tolerance for picky eaters when you find out some of it could just be due to their genetics.

To me it smells worse than soap or stink bugs. It is at the top of the list of things I do not like.

Yes, it smells and tastes like soap. I can always detect in food, even in the tiniest amount and combined with many other flavors. It can not hide anywhere lol. Interesting about genetics as my dad has the same strong reaction as I do, but my mom and brother love it. My DH likes it, as do our kids.

we can't stand it! don't like it when used in Chinese food as Chinese parsley...wonder if it was when I was taking a cooking class (and didn't know I was pg, yet) it turned me...

DH has an allergic reaction to it, rash and upset stomach plus oher more unpleastant effects. It is like his body thinks it is a poison and is trying to get rid of it. He says it tastes like he is eatting weeds. He hates the smell too. The seeds of the plant are called coriander and he can't eat that ether. He can't eat Mexican or Indian food. I can take it or leave it, don't really notce it. I love all the bitter veggies.

I agree I also think it tastes like a weed, I replace it with parsley on recipes that it is called for.

I guess I should have said above that I do think it has a mild soapy, smell & taste, but it's not strong enough to deter me. I love it. Perhaps I wouldn't mind eating soap, who knows. ;)

As many mentioned, I also think it's strong and the tiniest little piece can be detected in food. But if I also think HARD about it, I can see why some people think it takes like soap. In a blind taste test I supposed I could be tricked into believing I was eating soap.

Regardless, I like it and cook lots with it.

If I use too much cilantro, it tastes soapy to me, but if I use only a little, I like the clean taste it imparts. I don't notice the smell of it in the raw state.

Sheilajoy haha "clean taste" was that a purposeful pun?

I love it! Luckily, so does Robert and I use it generously in some of my dishes. Had it in my spicy mango salsa last night, yum!

We love cilantro, and I use it in a lot of recipes.

I just took a hit in the interest of science, lol. I chewed a few coriander seeds that I'd bought to use in pickling spice mixes. They were quite old, but still produced the 'bubble bath' taste, or the taste of the additive that makes bubble bath smell as it does. Also reminds me of the cleaner Germatrol or Germtrol(?) that my mother used when I was small. There's a faint after-taste of cardamom/menthol shaving cream scent.

I need to go brush my teeth.

Ok, so I've had coriander seeds a ga-gillion times, but had to just go dig some out of my pickling spice because of Mama goose because I'm out of plain seeds until my cilantro bolts. I laughed the whole time I was doing it. I don't really get the soap taste come through. It's spicy and does have almost a hint of menthol to it, but I don't taste the soapiness. Thank you ancestor for passing on your great genetics to allow me to be able to eat cilantro.
Oh an rhizo - I have about 5 small jars of mango salsa still sitting here from last year's canning season. Nobody will eat it except for me. It goes great on wraps with duck and feta cheese.

Not only that, parmesan smells like vomit....and fennel tastes like licorice, my MIL once made licorice chicken, not tasty to me.

I think fennel tastes like licorice to everyone. No so parmesan and vomit though. :-)

I'm surprised to hear coriander produced the soap taste. I always thought it was a nice spice--good in my chai, and in curry, which I love. I don't feel that way about cilantro leaves.

Parmesan smells like dirty feet to me, and I agree that fennel does taste like licorice. It's very, very good for you. As a way off topic comment, I will sometimes give a blend of herbs that includes fennel and fenugreek to my goats when they are having trouble keeping up supply of milk for twins. They don't mind that licorice taste one bit. They also LOVE cilantro.

I don't care for it but I don't mind a bit of it. Just add my name to plllog's post.

Love cilantro! Taste and smell. I use it a lot.

Fennel is supposed to taste like licorice. :) And lots of good cheese smells like bad feet! It's the salty bacterial smell. I once thought something had rotted in my fridge, but it was cleaned just prior, so I was hunting behind the drawers and all for the awful smell. Then I figured out it was a well wrapped, very ripe, very expensive French cheese, for which layers plastic film were no match. It was a very delicious cheese, too, which didn't smell bad spread on toast points. Strong, but not rotten. I wonder if it smelled worse cold than at room (eating) temp?

I just tasted some ground coriander. It does taste kind of soapy, huh? I don't notice that in cooking, unlike those of you who get it when it's just a little bit. Most people I know either love or hate. I don't know a lot of others who tolerate but don't really like it.

Watchmelol and I crossposted! Welcome to the club!

I am very fond of the taste and smell of cilantro. I always add more than a recipe calls for. I should have grown it this year. I just bought a small lemon basil plant, maybe I can still get cilantro. Having lived in California and eaten a lot of Mexican food, it is a comforting smell to me. Fortunately, DS also likes it in large quantities. I think he inherited it from both parents.

I detest licorice, but I don't mind fennel on fish.

Lol, my grandfather used to complain if we had pizza--we got the vomit reference often.

I love vanilla in anything. If I have a drip down the side of the bottle when I'm baking, I rub it on my wrists--I used to rub it along my neck, under my ears, so DH would get a whiff when he came home. ;)

I've met one person IRL who didn't care for vanilla. Like you cilantro lovers--I can't imagine that.

I love cilantro and don't think it taste like soap. I can't grow it though so I grow Vietnamese Coriander (Rau Ram) instead. It taste pretty much the same but it's easier to grow. Looks different too. Rau Ram

People either love cilantro or hate it, there's no in-between.

I'm in the hate camp. I don't think it tastes like soap, but I don't like the smell of the herb or the taste in anything that it's in. It's too overpowering.

I love ground coriander, nice and earthy and rich tasting.

I love fennel, especially in Spaghetti sauce, yum. I like cilantro in salsa but that's where it stops. A few weeks ago, I bought some cilantro for a recipe I was making. I had it in the fridge and the next day the smell was so strong and awful I had to toss it. It wasn't a soapy smell though wouldn't have had to toss it if it was, smelled like the recycling dump yuk, never again. One spice I cannot tolerate the taste or smell of is cumin.

I like cumin in Mexican foods, but I've always thought it smells like a sweaty old man.

I love nutmeg. I keep whole nuts and grate whatever I need for each recipe--always add nutmeg to my pancake batter. The freshly grated nutmeg reminds me of my mother's kitchen and the smell of pumpkin pie. I don't care for pumpkin pie, but I love the way it smells.

I pretty much like everything except for super spicy (hot). I like things even more if somebody else makes them for me.

What I don't get is all the Mexican food here has tons of cumin in it, but when I was younger, I lived in Monterey and on a ranch just north of Guadalajara. I learned to make all of their foods and not one dish had that in it. My first experience with Cilantro was on the ranch. I was riding my horse in some woods and got poison oak. The old women there chopped up the cilantro and mixed it in a glass of water with some other herbs. They told me to drink it to get rid of the poison oak. I couldn't stand the smell and declined. It took 20 years for me to acquire a taste for it in salsa.

I like cumin a lot. It adds tonnes of flavor as long as you don't go overboard. It's great in chili, Indian food, Mexican, lentil soup. Yum. It does make you stink though. Another thing that really makes me stink is turmeric. I love this canned zucchini relish that I make but the next day it's sooo strong, it just comes right out of your pores.

I think that cilantro is an acquired taste. I used to work in the grocery business as a perishable manager. I absolutely thought that cilantro stunk and tasted like soap. I began growing my own and I love it now.

Lukkiirish, there are many regional variations, as well as entirely different cuisines, all over Mexico. You're not the only one with a Monterrey background who eschews the cumin. :) We've always had some, but not tons. In that vein, the quantity of cilantro has increased immensely!

I love to use herbs but you won't find cilantro in my kitchen! Bleck!

You all are a bunch of cilantro discriminators. You'd probably throw up having to eat in this house. I even make a salsa at canning time that is labeled as Cilantro Salsa. It's heavy on the cilantro and although my husband doesn't mind cilantro he doesn't love loads of it. I also LOVE and I do mean LOVE plain yogurt with cilantro in it when I make Indian. Soooo good. It cuts the heat of the spices. A samosa dipped in it devine!

I think there must be some variations with the cilantro too. The fresh bunch I tossed was the strongest oder, worse than spoiled meat or a bunch of strong onions. I've bought lots of it over the years for my salsa and never had that kind of experience with it.

plllog, my experiences in Mexico were life altering and something I will never forget.

Wow, look at all the comments over a simple herb! I have to admit though, it has been an acquired taste for me, and now I find it refreshing. Indian cooking uses loads of the stuff!