stink bugs
I've said this before but no one ever commented. Have you ever smelt a squashed "stink bug" - those beige-greenish flat bugs that stink if you squash them? that, to me, is the exact taste of cilantro. I, too, can pick up the taste from a myriad of tastes and in complex and spicy cuisines like indian and mexican (i have a very sensitive nose) and it absolutely and irreversibly ruins any dish it's in. I can eat practically anything, but cilantro is different. In fact i rarely will agree to eat in a mexican or indian restaurant because of it. (I do prefer to taste the food over the spices, so those cuisines don;t appeal to me that much, but i can enjoy some food that has strong tastes, like clove or pepper or garlic and if i ask to have the dish without cilantro i can enjoy them. But not with cilantro.
Stranger still is the fact that one of my favorite spices is the seed of the cilantro plant, coriander. I love it. It has no resemblance to cilantro. (i would imagine most of the chemicals would be the same? or not?)
Another flavor that ruins everything for me is bitter almond (amaretto). I could be starving but i couldn;t eat something with bitter almond. They say it tastes like cyanide, though i wonder who tasted it and lived to tell ("arggh ackhhh, akhhh! who put bitter almond in my coffee?" quiver, plop - dead.) Anyway, some people love it, like cilantro. There are flavors that i dislike, but they don't absolutely ruin food for me, i just prefer not to eat them - but these two are different.
"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"