The Ink-Pot and the Palette

A Twitter conversation about cilantro yesterday between Jane Espenson and Drew Greenberg (Jane vows to try liking it, Drew feels betrayed in their united cilantro hatred) led me to some reading about this poor controversial little leaf, aka coriander and also aka Chinese parsley, which some people regard almost as a poison even as it makes up an important part of several great cuisines.

An NPR article cites some research into the divide. After ruling out taste factors in the leaf, the research found that there's a smell component that cilantro lovers can detect, but which cilantro haters can't. Without that component, the stuff smells like soap. Or bugs.

This interested me because I've been on both sides of the cilantro divide. For most of my life I hated the stuff. It ruined anything it was in, and removed vast swaths of Mexican and Indian cuisine from my enjoyment.

Then a few weeks ago, thanks to a cilantro-centric dish offered by kis when she was visiting, I discovered that I now like it. I suspect my gluten-freedom has something to do with it: a number of my tastes and cravings have undergone such remarkable changes in the last eight months that I hardly know myself. Sinus-clearing alone could account for the shift in olfactory perception.

So, a poll.