People are born with varying ranges of olfactory abilities — the lowest category being anosmia the inability to smell anything and the highest, hyperosmia: a heightened sense of smell that makes different odors more acute. Whether your sense of smell is muted or extreme is genetic. Scent, according to Gail Vance Civille, president and owner of Sensory Spectrum, a management consulting firm that specializes in consumer experiences, is one of the primary ways people detect and distinguish the detailed properties of foods.
In , researchers at Cornell University conducted a study with almost 30, people and found that there was one specific gene that makes some people strongly dislike the taste of cilantro. To me it's so strong — and it actually tastes like soap to me — but it's so strong it overpowers every other flavor.
According to Civille, this trait might be an indicator that they actually have a heightened sense of smell because their brain recognizes that very particular aldehyde chemical.
So how common is it to hate cilantro? While those who hate cilantro may never truly be able to appreciate its refreshing properties without feeling like they've just consumed a bar of soap, there may actually be a bright side to this hypersensitivity. Being a professional food tester may sound like a pretty easy dream job, but it actually requires a fine sense of smell that not everyone has. Of course, you can't change your genes, notes Dr.
Kelley — so it's not possible to change how your olfactory receptors interpret the aldehydes in cilantro. But if you're tired of skipping dishes just because they have the herb, there are a few ways to mellow out its flavor. For finished dishes that already contain cilantro think: those that you order at a restaurant or are served at a friend's dinner party , Williams recommends "adding in other strong flavors like chopped onion, hot peppers, or fresh lime juice.
These ingredients will help offset the strong flavor of cilantro, potentially making it more palatable for you. When adding cilantro to homemade dishes, you can reduce its intense taste by crushing or pulverizing the leaves, says Dr. Think: finely chopping, mincing, or blending, notes Williams. Another method is to heat the cilantro by adding it to a cooked dish as you make it rather than using it as a fresh garnish; cooking also breaks down the aldehydes, thus minimizing its intense odor, adds Dr.
Related: Leftover Cilantro? Let's say your relationship with cilantro will never work out, and you'd rather move on. Traci Weintraub, chef and founder of Gracefully Fed , a Los Angeles-based meal delivery service, suggests reaching for parsley instead.
As a relative of cilantro, "parsley is a wonderful stand-in, both in color and taste," explains Weintraub. It also has a similar texture and offers a "fresh factor" that cilantro typically brings to a dish, she adds. Better yet, try the following tip from Marissa Meshulam, M. This will help mirror the taste best, she says.
Thanks to its bright and strong flavor, basil also works as a cilantro alternative. That's because basil has a pungent, somewhat peppery taste, while parsley is on the milder side. Fell in love with cilantro a few years ago.
Main problem is trying to use it before it goes bad. Photo of Kirsten Nunez. By Kirsten Nunez August 30, Save FB Tweet More. In a study conducted by genomics company 23andMe , scientists discovered that a reception gene identified as OR6A2, which resides on chromosome 11, is responsible for binding the various aldehyde components to its receptors.
In other words, people with the OR6A2 receptor gene are able to detect aldehydes, and therefore detect what is described as a "soapy odor," while those without this receptor cannot detect the soapy taste.
Interestingly, people with European or Caucasian ancestry are more likely to hate cilantro because they are genetically predisposed to detecting aldehydes. This explains why cilantro or coriander doesn't make much of an appearance in Western cuisine. Julia Childs famously disliked cilantro and stated in an interview that she would "pick [cilantro] out and throw it on the floor" if she saw it in her food.
More recently, internet groups and blogs have formed for people to share their aversion to this herb and create a sense of solidarity—there is an "I Hate Cilantro" Facebook group and an "I Hate Cilantro" blog.
However, cilantro's bad reputation dates back to the 16th and 17th century. In , John Gerard, an English botanist and herbalist, described the cilantro in his journals as the "very stinking herbe" with "leaves of venomous quality. Interestingly, it wasn't just genetics that lead to this smear campaign against cilantro in the 17th century. Historians have found many records of notable people damning the herb because of its etymology. The word for cilantro in many European languages is "coriander," which stems from the Greek word "koros," meaning "bug.
A quote from William Robinson's book on vegetables is proof that cilantro was not culturally accepted in European cuisine: "Some writers say the leaves are used for seasoning, but this statement seems odd, as all the green parts of the plant exhale a very strong odor of the wood-bug, whence the Greek name of the plant.
Vietnamese cuisine features a lot of fresh cilantro. A Japanese study claims that crushing cilantro allows the aldehydes to gradually convert into another substance, therefore removing the aroma of "soap. Jay Gottfried, a neuroscientist from Northwestern University, says that the brain can be trained to find pleasant associations with the aroma of cilantro. A cilantrophobe himself, Dr. Gottfried explains that when we taste food, the brain searches for a past experience associated with the taste and smell of that particular food.
If the flavor of cilantro isn't associated with good food but rather lotion or soaps, then the brain immediately sends a signal for you to reject it—this is a primal instinct that helped our ancestors eliminate bad foods. It produces a specific subset of aldehydes, organic compounds that can provide highly pungent odors when highly expressed. Yet these aldehydes also provide the fresh, citrusy aroma that others rave about.
So why are some people unable to taste the good side of cilantro? In a paper , University of Otago anthropologist Helen Leach found that cilantro was treated as an unwanted herb in European cuisine from the 16th century onward, and very often disparaged for its foul taste and smell. Sharing a similar shape to bedbugs, the newly unpopular herb may have been associated with their foul smell.
This negative association may have been enough to enhance the less palatable flavors in cilantro, leading Victorians to turn their noses up at the herb.
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