i imagine this has been done before, but not in a way that includes ME (the most important person)
for the record, i think it tastes a bit like soap and i love it
it's like if soap tasted good.
yes exactly!
What kind of soap are y'all eating?
cilantro is a 'sharp'/astringent flavor like alcohol. without embedded sociocultural exposure, some people associate that sharpness with the astringency of soap. with sociocultural exposure, there isn't an association with soap until/unless suggested. so. culture.
honestly the cilantro tastes like soap thing is a combination of regular cultural racism (why are we not comparing cilantro to actual human food or gin or vodka?) and weird genetic racism (why don't white people like cilantro? do we have different genes? (no. the "cilantro soap gene" is actually just a region of DNA makes some tastes sharper. our culture is what associated that sharpness with soap.))
So its an aldehyde thing! Cilantro leaves contain aldehydes, and cyclamen aldehyde is fragrance molecule that has been commonly used in soaps since ~1920.
I guess that technically means that cilantro doesn’t taste like soap. Modern soap just smells like cilantro. Which is Wild.
that is really interesting, actually!
i’m still trying to get my head around “not having better words to explain why a genetic quirk makes an herb taste inedible to me through no fault of my own (and despite a genuine desire for it to taste edible as so many cuisines i love use it frequently) is racism.”