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They likely take your tongue for granted or don’t fully understand the complexities of deciphering the flavors it encounters and send those delicious or unpleasant signals to your brain.
This is all the more important as things don’t always taste the same to different people. Indeed, when it comes to the herb coriander, the fresh earthiness you taste might actually taste like palmolive or a fragrant bar of bath soap to someone else. There’s a lot to wade through when it comes to this common myths about food, but the idea that cilantro tastes like soap to some people is not a fancy rumor.
Why coriander tastes like soap to some people
Whether or not you try a sip of antiseptic when you have a bite of coriander-rich salsa depends on the genetic cubes. In particular, it comes down to the aldehydes – organic compounds in which one carbon atom shares a bond with another atom or a group of atoms. for Britannica– Contained in coriander, which is often used in various perfumes and cleaning products due to their distinctive fragrances.
According to the Cleveland ClinicThe aldehydes are best detected through the olfactory receptors that allow you to smell things. The organization notes:
The difference may be small at the molecular level, but it has a large impact at the olfactory (smell) level. It is believed that an aversion to coriander is primarily caused by its smell (and the smell is directly related to how we taste).
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Whether you try delicious herbs or something soapy depends on your genetics. In a study pointed out by the Cleveland Clinic, 14,000 respondents were tested for genetic characteristics that could suggest why some people find coriander soap and others don’t. About 10 percent of those who showed a preponderance of the olfactory receptor gene OR6A2, “which has a high binding specificity for several of the aldehydes that give coriander its characteristic odor,” wrote the authors in the study published in Flavor Journal in 2012.
Your ethnic background is a factor
The 2012 study is the official scientific consensus on the polarizing herb coriander. And while it’s just a study, it revealed interesting insights into why some cultures and ethnic backgrounds seem to share an aversion to coriander.
According to the study, different ethnic groups surveyed did not necessarily report consistently about tasting soapiness, but there was a clear association between aversion to coriander and ethnicity. (Women also reported tasting soap more often when consuming the herb).
How Nature wrote in 2012::
21% of East Asians, 17% of people of European descent, and 14% of people of African descent say they don’t like this stuff. In contrast, 3-7% of South Asians, Latin Americans, and Middle Eastern subjects disapproved of the herb, which is more common in their local cuisine.
One might conclude that these preferences naturally correlate with the uses of cilantro and cilantro – seeds that eventually sprout into cilantro – in various cuisines around the world. Cultures that use it more often have a lower percentage of people who taste soapy, and vice versa.
The key to take away? It’s not really a matter of preference. Coriander actually tastes like soap to some people. Instead of mocking them, we can sympathize with their plight: that they will never get the real pleasure of properly made guacamole.