I assume most folks here know this, but for any who don’t, whether you like cilantro is largely based on your genes. For people with certain genes, it tastes strongly like soap.
A similar Gene exists for broccoli, where it tastes bitter and bad to some people.
But not everyone.
I had no idea this was the case.
I love cilantro. Even reading about it gives me the taste of it in my senses, stronger than a lot of flavors. But this makes sense.
I used to go to this Mongolian BBQ place–one of those places where you build your own bowl of food and then they cook it on that huge circular stovetop thingy–that I loved to go to a couple of years ago. Of all the things you could add to your bowl, the cilantro container had a little typed up sign that read, “Cilantro: PLEASE TASTE FIRST!”
Now I get why.
-xtien
I know that now. But the first time I actually experienced it was at a new Thai place in my Brooklyn neighborhood years ago. They had just opened and so the SO and I went there to support them. I ordered some kind of salad. I took one bite and I almost gagged. I was sure that they had somehow put a cleaning solution in the salad bowl. So I asked for a new dish. I didn’t make a big deal about it. I just asked for a new bowl. I even said that I’d pay for both. New place, trying to give them a break.
The second one was just as bad. Soap in a bowl.
At that point I just decided to pay for everything and leave. They were so very apologetic. I felt so bad for them.
It was many years later that I discovered the issue. Luckily they did very well there and when I moved from the neighborhood they had expanded to a new store a few miles away.
I get it. It’s me. Not them.
The cilantro tasting like soap thing is genetic, but its not necessarily a genetic thing that you are stuck with all your life. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. There have been quite a few studies that have shown where the gene was located, but that it isn’t an exact predictor of cilantro preference. Sometimes its a cultural, and people just get used to it (or at least tolerate it).
This whole article isn’t very long, but here are some choice snippets
Two studies published this week link the aversion for cilantro with specific genes involved in taste and smell. But, just like the flavors of the herb itself, the findings are nuanced: The genes appear to influence our opinion of cilantro but probably not as much as we initially thought.
The authors propose that this odor gene contributes to a person’s dislike for cilantro because it increases the herb’s soapy smell.
But, “it didn’t make a huge a difference in cilantro preference from person to person,” Nicholas Eriksson, the lead author on the study, tells The Salt. In fact, their results suggest that a hatred for cilantro has only a small underlying genetic component. He and his team just published their findings on the arXiv.org.
Overall, Eriksson says these studies demonstrate that DNA does shape our opinion of cilantro, but probably not enough that we can’t overcome it. “It isn’t like your height, that you’re stuck with. People can change it,” he says.
From my own personal anecdote, I used to hate cilantro as a teenager. Couldn’t eat it if it was on the same plate as my food. Sometime in college, I started to tolerate it if it was cooked (like Chipotle’s cilantro rice). Eventually I could tolerate raw cilantro in small dose. By my 30’s, I started to actively put it on appropriate dishes. I even grow it now in my herb garden. I wasn’t actively trying to change my hate of cilantro, it just happened naturally.
Of course your milage may vary. I’m sure most people don’t care enough to overcome it (or the foul taste is so strong most people don’t want to overcome it). For me, it became unavoidable as my tastes naturally went to cuisines that use a lot of cilantro and it didn’t always remember to order w/o cilantro.
My experience is that if it’s cooked it isn’t so bad. But raw is soap.
What we need is a gene that makes sugar taste like soap; we’d all be better off. I’ve know the cilantro thing since a science test in chemist when I was in junior high… I’ve run into a ton of people who have it. I’ll leave it out of my salsa when i have one in my gaming group. I also know one person who has a reaction to limes but not lemons… oddest thing.
This is kind of where I’m at, except for the adding it to dishes part. I’ll still decline it if offered and pick it out of food if it’s like an entire sprig, but if it’s chopped fine then I can generally tolerate it.
Hey, for what it is worth, there is a lot of effort going into figuring this out. Things that have been found, Rich even mentioned one:
I love that science is working on solving the problem. It would be awesome if everyone could enjoy cilantro.
Huh. As I have gotten older Cilantro has gone from disgusting to not bad. I used to think I had the gene for sure, lately I have been thinking maybe not. Now I don’t know what to think. Go science!
I’ve gone from thinking it was mediocre to absolutely awesome. And most of that has been because of frequenting a place for lunch 1-2 times a week that highlights fresh cilantro in a lot of dishes. I’ve been eating lunch there now for … 8 years or so? Until going there, I would usually skip or skimp on cilantro as an ingredient addition while cooking.
Our tastes certainly change over time.
There’s a restaurant in Basque Country called Asador Etxebarri. It’s famous for its asador grill and and its whole grilled turbot. Now I’ve been drooling over pics of this for some time now, but its not somewhere I’m likely to go any time soon, but with a great fishmonger in town what better than to try and recreate the dish?
Firstly, the accompaniments, and some sides for my vegetarian wife.
A sweetheart cabbage sliced in half, a large spring onion, lots of sumac, olive oil, salt and pepper.
Over the grill. It’s charcoal but I added some woody rose sticks that had been drying in the garden.
Once covered in foil, into the oven it goes. Not too high, just to soften the inside of the cabbage whilst I cook…
I brought a cage today. Lots of olive oil, salt and pepper.
on the grill it goes, I covered it with the lid to reflect some heat back. I love squatting by a low level grill like this, and its perfect for one.
One side done.
and the other. I turned it a few times brushing it down with olive oil.
I managed to get the cooking time perfect. It fell to bits. The fish was fatty, sticky, unctuous, with a good level of smoky char and hint of wood and ash from my enthusiastic fanning whilst cooking. The large fillets buttery and meaty, with gelatinous stickiness nearer the bones. The fins you could snap off the ends and eat for a lovely crunchy texture. I don’t think I’ve had better at home ever. The cabbage was slightly overdone, i prefer the cabbage greener (I ate the burnt, outside green leaves when cooking it was amazing) and some plain potatoes to offset the rich, fattiness of the turbot.
Got the searzal thing, which helps eliminate the propane taste on did when using a torch.
Cooked some strip steaks, and roasted potatoes (the ones I mentioned earlier) plus some sweet potatoes, and some corn.
Aww yeah.
That looks tasty. I got my Joule today and I have a rack of ribs going set at 158 for 24 hours per their recommendation. I will finish them with a dry rub of paprika, brown sugar, salt, mustard seed, black pepper, garlic powder, oregano, coriander, and red pepper flakes. And then serve them with heated sauce on the side. That takes about 30 minutes. While the ribs are finishing I will sous vide corn on the cob, vacuum packed with butter, that takes 30 mins as well. I will also have steamed broccoli as well and some cheddar bay biscuits to top off the meal. Gonna eat well tomorrow!
That all looks amazing. It makes me want to try grilling turbot now. But I have no idea where I’d get one!
Well I finished my sous vide ribs and WOW! Talk about perfect ribs. They had both tenderness and texture. I tend to lose texture when shooting for tenderness, when slow cooking but sous vide eliminated that problem. My next test with sous vide is to see if the rumors that you can make a chuck steak taste like a rib steak, are indeed true. I can get chuck steak for $3/lb right now. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. Anyway, I was impressed with how the ribs turned out so I am thinking the Joule is going to be a very useful addition to my kitchen.
That was my experience, except I had godrays, spontaneous harp playing, and a warm fuzzy feeling. Made it many a time since.
The bad news is I can no longer tolerate ribs from restaurants, or even most dedicated BBQ joints. It’s just not worth the calories & cholesterol.
MY GOD THAT LOOKS GOOD!
I love fish. I miss fish. My girlfriend doesn’t like fish/shellfish or anything remotely fishy smelling. She likes canned tuna or sardines, I’ve yet to figure those out. Being a dirty American, I have not had turbot, but heard about it while living in Italy and just never took the chance to try it. Everything about how you prepared that sounds absolutely amazing.
When I cook cabbage on the grill I usually wrap it in foil, with olive oil, salt/pepper, and perhaps a dab of butter. Wrapping it up lets it steam a bit, then you can pull it out for a quick sear if you like more of that or some charred and smoky taste.
Thumbs up, man. That meal looked fantastic.
So how are they finished? Did either of you add liquid smoke during the cook?
Pics!! You’re tempting me here. Did you sear with any other method or was that just from a seazal?
Huh. As someone who gags at at the smell of canned tuna, I find that baffling.
That steak was just the searzall. It worked extremely well, surpassing the cast iron pan in terms of being able to get a real good sear, but the penetration into the meat was pretty much nil, which is what you want.
It totally eliminated the propane taste, and the TS8000 torch puts out enough heat to do the job fast. It gives very good control too. I think it’d be good for a leg of lamb.
Whether it’s worth it, I dunno. The searzall is like $60, which seems pricey for what it is, which is basically just a thing that attaches to the torch. But it does work well, so I can’t complain about its effectiveness. Easier to deal with than heating up the cast iron pan too, and no real smoke during the searing process.
