This is really interesting! I HATE cilantro, and really want to like it!

i hear to some people it tastes like soap. I feel bad for them. I love it. its the one herb i always have on hand fresh. its so versatile too, indian, asian, mexican, middle eastern - it works so well in so many dishes.

I had the same thing - grew up HATING cilantro (unless it was cooked in Moroccan meatballs). I'd spend easily an hour picking it out of my tomato salad (which would drive my parents crazy) and the same would make me gag.

I started enjoying in a couple of years ago on my first trip to Texas - somehow it doesn't taste as soapy as usual in tex-mex food.

I love cilantro, but I understand that some people think it tastes like stink bugs!

I'll have to take two dessert island herbs...in the summer fresh basil... So good just mixed with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella. I can't grow it fast enough!

In the winter I like rosemary. I'll have a plant on my windowsill, and I have to stop myself from using it every night! I've used it so many things this winter! I'll even put it in pastry crust for savory pastries, like these with carrots, apples and goat's cheese. (Makes good crackers, too!)

I'm one of the unfortunate people for whom cilantro tastes like soap. I hope it is overcome-able though... this gives me hope!

I'm starting to like brussel sprouts.

Until a month ago, I hated them with a passion, because the only way I'd ever had them was the "boiled to mush" method.

It hasn't been an "overnight" transformation, so much as a "I see the light of properly prepared, and it's growing on me."

My fiancee roasts it or steams it, and with texture, it's okay; the taste of the vegetable itself still leaves something to be desired, but I'm hating it less and less.

I really want to like cilantro! But the soapy taste hits me hard every time I try it. I love Indian and Thai food, but I'm always on the look out for flecks of green or garnishes. This gives me hope that I can learn to like it - or maybe just tolerate it.

I have been an adult for many years now, and I still *hate* the stuff. For me, it's not genetic issue of soapy taste. It tastes like an herb to me. However, it's so strong that I literally get sick to my stomach. Not figuratively, but literally. =/

I hated cilantro all my childhood and young adult life - it tasted like soap with that same awful astringent burn from when you first dared say the word "cr*p" in front of your mom and she got to your tongue with some good ol Ivory. However, after I had my daughter, the soapy taste was gone and now I love cilantro! I eat it in all cuisines and like to keep it around in a little vase for the fragrance. I've heard that pregnancy can change tastes and I guess this is a good example.

I LOVE cilantro with potatoes (batata harra) or with a good mexican rice!

Cilantro is easily my favourite herb and garnish, and I almost always have some on hand, so living without it is almost unimaginable for me.

It's funny how tastes and smell change along with hormonal changes in one's body... for example, I once smelled a perfume and hated it. Passionately. But then I found out that I was massively deficient in vitamin D and iron, and somewhat deficient in potassium and phosphorus. Eventually, I took another whiff of the offending perfume, and it is now one of my very favourites. So I can see how pregnancy and breastfeeding can change your taste and sense of smell; ditto for any illnesses. After I had undergone a lengthy surgery (over 5 hours), I had a completely blunted sense of taste and smell for some 9 months (I assumed it was the anesthetic). There are so many factors which can impact our sense of taste and smell, and affect our likes and dislikes.

There's actually evidence of a gene that determines your like or dislike for cilantro:

NY Times: Cilantro Haters, It's Not Your Fault
If the flavor doesn’t fit a familiar food experience, and instead fits into a pattern that involves chemical cleaning agents and dirt, or crawly insects, then the brain highlights the mismatch and the potential threat to our safety. We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs.

I would describe myself as a cilantro hater, who (like WARM VANILLA SUGAR) wishes I could love it. It's like I'm missing out on something. I've found though, that I can usually deal with it in Indian food. For example, eating curry with some cilantro is much different from eating ceviche with some cilantro -- in the former, it blends in with many other strong spices and doesn't dominate the dish, but in the latter, the herb is the only thing I can taste in the whole dish. It's still not my favorite flavor, but maybe if I go on a temporary Indian food diet, I can change my brain's reaction to it?

I always heard a recessive gene makes it taste like soap. But if you can overcome the soapy taste, then maybe this isn't so?

LOVE cilantro!!!

My husband is one of those who can smell even the faintest whiff of it hours after I've used it in the kitchen. He is also one of those for whom it tastes like soap. To his credit he tried it, but so far at age 30 he can't stomach it. Sucks too, I do great stuff with it.

I remember disliking it as a child, but don't recall when my crossover occurred.

Blasphemous! How can one of us (a cilantro-hater) turn to the other side?? I can't stand cilantro. It is seriously vile stuff. Over the years, I've come to tolerate it cooked or in a tomatillo salsa, but otherwise I will pick it out of my food, tiny piece by tiny piece. Unlike others here, I don't really have any desire to like it - my taste is my taste, and there's scientific evidence that I'm not just being picky, so I'm ok with it. This is also probably a reaction to years of people trying to make me like it - I had an ex boyfriend who would try to sneak it into food and then get offended when it took me an hour to pick it all out of my food. If my tastes happen to magically change, then I suppose I will cross over to the dark side. But otherwise, why bother to force yourself to like something that turns your stomach?

My daughter was visiting recently & she combined Cilantro & fresh Lemon juice with
Tomato juice, I loved it. Quite refreshing! ! ! She prompted me to plant cilantro in my garden too :))

Add me to the cilantro haters. It's totally genetic, my mom and aunts all hate it too. I'm intrigued by the idea that pregnancy can change that though! Gives me hope! It seems like it's in almost every asian and mexican dish that I love

@DANA B, why do I want to like it? Because liking is more enjoyable than hating. Because picking things out of your food is no fun. Meals would be a little easier if I didn't have to occasionally fish cilantro, onions, or pickles out of my food. I'd much prefer to enjoy them -- or at least tolerate them -- so that I wouldn't have to worry about them.

I dislike cilantro a great deal, but I'm also trying to like it! If so many people love it and use it everywhere, there has to be a redeeming value to liking it, right? My fiance looooves it, and can't get enough. It just is too strong to me, too overpowering and sometimes gets a little soapy tasting. But I've started putting it on my tacos (usually only to pick half of it back off) and make sure it is in my salsa, pico de gallo, and guacamole...

i really wish i could like cilantro - so many of my favorite foods have it in there, and i have to ask for it to be taken out when at restaurants. but, alas, if i taste it, my entire meal will taste exactly like soap. and i've eaten soap, unfortunately.

runs in my family - my mother also can't stand the stuff.

I grew up pretty neutral about it but slowly over time started going absolutely crazy for it, and now I feel like it makes everything tastier. Mmmmm.

I LOVE CILANTRO!!! But, it is pretty funny how people either love it or hate it. Even though I adore it, I can see how people think it tastes like soap.

i love coriander, but i Hate goats cheese, its cut my tong off now horrible! infact, anything made from goats milk, nasty stuff, always hated always will.

i like cilantro just fine, i wouldn't say i love it, but i also totally see why some people think it tastes like soap, i mean, it kind of SMELLS like soap, right? at least to me. so, i like it just fine and really like some things its in, but i'm not hating on people who don't like it, i feel like i get it.

ohhhhh if cilantro only TASTED like soap, i would be able to choke it down with the rest of my burrito. instead, it tastes and smells like something so much more awful... i liken it to the smell of vomit. seriously. the other day we were at our winter farmer's market eating lunch at the long communal table and when i leaned down to take a bite of my sandwich i was instantly repulsed by the smell... i looked around and a woman sitting all the way at the other end of the table (5 or so people between us) had some cilantro on her pan-asian noodles. shudder.

i have always hated it. the first few times i tried it, i immediately gagged and had to spit it out. i've tried it in all different types of cuisines and dishes... no luck. i keep torturing myself occasionally by trying to eat it, but each time i gag at the smell. i guess the only thing that mei and i have in common is our pleasure in reading calvino!