This is a story about cilantro. Simple as that. Or not? It’s about a green that polarizes humanity. An ingredient that steals the show, hijacks the flavor (and the aroma), hogs all the attention, and dominates the conversation.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had a cilantro allergy.”
“No, no. It’s not an allergy.”
“What is it, then?”
**
Let’s clear the air, first. Cilantro is not like other greens.
It is not like basil, which gives freshness to a dish and seems humble about it.
It is not like mint, which transports people to salty air, sweet Mediterranean and Caribbean breezes, and sandy sunsets.
It is cilantro, and nothing else. One might call it: the weed of Satan, green death…
You either love it or hate it. You take it or leave it.
You pick your side and fight for it.
I don’t think there is any other green on earth that has inspired so much scientific research and also made scientists come together to study the animosity toward a single ingredient. (There’s an “I Hate Cilantro” Facebook page with hundreds of fans, a “17 Reasons Coriander Is Just the Fucking Worst” with thousands of likes, and an “I Hate Cilantro” blog.) My adversarial relationship with cilantro is so complicated that there had to be some backstory.
**
Actually, there was. Later on, I found that scientific results confirm that there is a genetic component to cilantro taste perception. They suggest that the dislike for cilantro may stem from genetic variation in olfactory receptors. Back in 2012, genetic testing company 23andMe sampled the DNA of nearly 30,000 people of European ancestry, who'd answered a survey about whether they loved or hated coriander. Out of the 11,851 participants who declared that they liked it and the 14,604 who insisted it tasted like soap, they found two genetic variants that were associated with the preferences, and the strongest variant was located within a cluster of olfactory-receptor genes.
**
First, I felt bad for it.
Could you imagine being cilantro? You’re cool by Asians, Mexicans, and South Americans. They love you. The can’t live (or eat) without you, and that feels amazing. You feel like a salt-and-pepper staple of their tables, where everyone calls your name and wants more of you. When it comes to Europeans, the scene dramatically changes. You make them vomit. You ruin their meals, their lives. How racist is that?
Even famed chefs in food history give you a bad name, gossiping about you all the time behind your back. (Or front. Whatever.) Like Julia Child: “Cilantro and arugula, I don’t like at all. They’re both green herbs, they have kind of a dead taste to me. I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor,” she responds to a question about foods she hated in a television interview in 2002 with Larry King. I didn’t think I had ever tasted it. Until, one day…
**
Flashback. Back to 2010.
The city: Istanbul.
The location: Various cool, hip, trendy cocktail bars.
The mission: Tasting different cocktails and deciding which one would be featured in a supplementary cocktail book that I’d been commissioned to write, called “50 Best Cocktails”.
Day one: Martini tasting.
I started the day like Bond, James Bond, having a sip from my high-quality, shaken-not-stirred martini in the morning with a clean-cut, perfectly-sharp suit, and I ended it like a trashy, messy Charlie Sheen. First, Cucumber Martini, and then Basil Martini, and then Thyme Martini, and then Cilantro Martini, and then… boom! I was the Charlie Sheen, all messed up and could not lift my head from the toilet, vomiting like a frozen margarita machine.
**
Back to now. Back to New York.
“Do you have any food allergies?” the waitress asks, almost knowing the answer, but still forcing you to say it.
I’m on a date, and as a first date, we’re having a late brunch at Atla. Being in a very New Yorker place with a very New Yorker date makes me feel good and for a hot second I totally forget that we are at a casual and cool neighborhood restaurant, esteemed by Mexican chef Enrique Olvera. (Quesadilla! A kale tamale with tomato salsa! Tacos!)
If there is one thing worse than having an unpleasant food experience and ruining a professional eating career, it is the “repeating the same cilantro story over and over again for the rest of your life” part. It’s like being cursed by the gods of cilantro.
For once, I want to have a nice, delicious, fancy dinner, and a pleasant date where there is no cilantro story involved. For once, I want a relationship where cilantro does not become “a thing”.
You know how it goes: It all starts early in the relationship with the cute “Oh, I’ll eat those green for you” or “Let me pick those out for you, so you can enjoy your dinner” moments, and over time it becomes “What is wrong with you? You are always like this. You don’t even have an allergy. But, you are so picky that you make big deal of it.”
End of a relationship.
The cilantro. Always a winner.
Or not?
**
The waitress at Atla comes back to the table with handsomely delicious dishes, marinated in… cilantro.
There we are again. The two of us.
Me and that sneaky looking weed.
When ordering our dishes, my reply to the waitress’ inquiry may have sounded like “No, not at all” But what I meant was: “This is war. Bring it on.”
Maybe I’m very judgmental.
Maybe it’s all in my head.
Maybe I do not have that gene and could actually enjoy the taste of cilantro.
(But even typing this sentence gives me agita, and also heart palpitations.)
There it is…
I have the first bite and close my eyes.
I imagine every precious, beautiful thing I’ve seen in my life, and I recall all the delicious, one-of-a-kind, life-exchanging food experiences I’ve ever had.
As I keep chewing, I use all the positive thinking tools that I’ve learned. I try to swallow, swallow and open my eyes…
“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Well… There is something I need to tell you…”
The cilantro.
Victorious.
As always.
