Cilantro

I was shocked to discover that there are some people in this world who not only don't like cilantro, but actively hate it:

After picking up a vegetable burrito on his way home from work, Mike Racanelli planted himself in front of his television and took a bite. The smell hit him immediately: cilantro.

Irate, the 29-year-old Chicago band manager drove 20 miles back to the Mexican restaurant where he'd bought the offending item, threw it on the counter, he recalls, and "raised hell," demanding a cilantro-free replacement "immediately."

Later, he decided to vent some more. He recounted his experience on a Facebook networking group called "I HATE CILANTRO." Social-networking Web sites have emerged as a bonding place for the multitudes who share his aversion to the pungent herb. The group has 894 members; there are some 40 other Facebook groups dedicated to cilantro bashing.

...Many people say it tastes soapy, rotten or just plain vile. Just a whiff of it is enough to make them push away their plates.

Cilantro, also known as Chinese parsley, is the leaves of the herb coriander, native to the eastern Mediterranean region. Cultivated for more than 3,000 years, the herb was used by Roman and Greek physicians, including Hippocrates, to make medicines. During the Chinese Han dynasty some 2,000 years ago, it was thought to have the power to make people immortal, according to Rodale's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Herbs.

...Cilantro haters complain that it is showing up in unexpected places. Erin Hollingsworth, a 26-year-old editor at an environmental Web site, says she detected it in a bowl of Manhattan clam chowder she ordered at a New York lunch place.

"I thought to myself: 'No, it couldn't be. Really. Is this a joke? Who puts cilantro in Manhattan clam chowder?'" she wrote in her blog, "I Hate Cilantro: A Look Inside the Life of a Cilantro Hater and Food Lover." Ms. Hollingsworth says she now lies to waiters, telling them she's allergic to cilantro. "People take you seriously that way," she says.

...Dr. Wysocki contends dislike of cilantro stems from its odor, not its taste. His hypothesis is that those who don't like it are unable to detect chemicals in the leaf that are pleasing to those who like the herb.

..."My family is Mexican and I always feel guilty that I don't like it," wrote Natalie Sample, a geography major at the University of Washington, in a Facebook posting. It's "like somehow I am letting my heritage down for [not] liking such an important element of our cooking."

...One group member confessed that she once "threw a burrito across my living room because, despite my specific delivery order, it was packed with cilantro. no joke."

...Some cilantro lovers are fighting back. Their groups include "Cilantro is totally sexy!" and "cilantro is the paramount herb."

...Tana D'Amico, 43, is a reformed cilantro hater. The Toronto native founded a cilantro-bashing group on Facebook. But later she tasted the salsa at a local restaurant and suddenly "really liked the freshness" of it.

"I fought a brave battle to fight for your rights to live in a Cilantro free society," she wrote in a letter of resignation as the group's president. But, she confessed: "The guilt has been building and churning for months."