Posted on 04/09/2021 10:43:50 AM PDT by mylife
You probably take your tongue for granted, or at least, don’t fully grasp the complexities of how it deciphers the flavors it encounters and sends those delicious or distasteful signals to your brain.
This is all the more important because things don’t always taste the same to different people. In fact, when it comes to the herb cilantro, the fresh earthiness you taste might actually taste like Palmolive or a fragrant bar of bathroom soap to someone else. There is a lot to wade through when it comes to common myths about food, but the idea that to some people, cilantro tastes like soap is no outlandish rumor.
Why cilantro tastes like soap to some people Whether you taste a mouthful of antiseptic when you chomp into a bite of cilantro-rich salsa comes down to a roll of the genetic dice. Specifically, it come down to the aldehydes—organic compounds in which a carbon atom shares a bond with another atom or group of atoms, per Britannica— found in cilantro, which are often used in various perfumes and cleaning products, owing to their pronounced fragrances.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the aldehydes are best detected through the olfactory receptors, which allow you to smell things. The organization notes:
The difference may be small at the molecular level, but has large implications at the olfactory (smell) level. It’s suspected that a dislike for cilantro is largely driven by the smell (and smell is directly linked to how we taste.)
(Excerpt) Read more at lifehacker.com ...
I love cilantro but scotch.....tastes like dirty socks smell. I was a cocktail waitress for many years and one of the owners in one place I worked drank Cutty and water. He’d leave a tall glass of it sitting in the waitress station. Every once in awhile I’d grab it and take a big swig thinking it was my white wine over ice. Yuck yuck and yuck!
More cilantro.
Scratch the red pepper flakes and diced canned green chiles.
Add fresh jalapenos or even serrano peppers.
That’s my salsa.
We’re from the same place! That’s the easiest and best salsa ingredients there are.
It Scotch really suks!!!
I don’t know. I’ve never eaten a shingle......................
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