James Grimmelmann observes the Best. Comment. Ever. to a recipe at Epicurious:
I served these at my health club's solstice gathering and everyone found them quite delicious. I omitted cilantro, however, because it's arbitrary aura makes the herb quite unstable and thus unsuitable to combine with any food.
Yet more support for the I Hate Cilantro movement.
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The admittedly odd taste of freah cilantro is an acquired one, like those for coffee and garlic.
The first time I grew the herb and tasted it I was repulsed. Skunky and gasoline-like were my first impressions. Tasting it as used in good Mexican restaurant dishes, as well as trying a friend's cilantro-laced salsa, gradually brought me around and now I love the stuff.
It's just not part of European-based American cuisine; most Americans didn't grow up eating it.
I've never found a good use for dried cilantro, though.
I'm pretty well convinced that there is a genetic component in how the taste of fresh cilantro is perceived. Most people in my own family bloodline and in several other families I know perceive fresh cilantro as tasting almost exactly like Ivory soap. Cooking, or use of the dried seed (coriander), obviate the nastiness.
Cilantro has a strong taste, but by no means is it that vile. As a professional purveyor of ecomonically important plants, I've tried just about everything, and I would rank cilantro no worse than a 4 on a scale of 10 for strong tasting condiments. Asafoetida (Ferula assa-foetida), a relative of fennel, is the source of a truly vile smelling resin used in some cooking (and vet medicine). I give it a 9; the specific epithet is a tip off. In terms of odor, durian (an aril) smells like an open sewer, but in taste, it's sort of cheesy, and not nearly as bad (maybe a 5.5). So get some perspective people.
Yes, many things are more revolting. But cilantro still tastes like soap to me.
Just smile, say, "It's not cilantro, it's leaf corriander."
I'm a cilantro hater, too. It wouldn't surprise me if it is genetic, although the other members of my family don't have the hate-cilantro phenotype. Perhaps I ended up with some weird mutation....
IHateCilantro.com has at least a little bit of scientific data that there is a genetic component to cilantro-hatred.