Cilantro Haters, It’s Not Your Fault
Tony Cenicola/The New York Times By HAROLD McGEE Published: April 13, 2010 FOOD partisanship doesn’t usually reach the same heights of animosity as the political variety, except in the case of the anti-cilantro party. The green parts of the plant that gives us coriander seeds seem to inspire a primal revulsion among an outspoken minority of eaters. Culinary sophistication is no guarantee of immunity from cilantrophobia. In a television interview in 2002, Larry King asked Julia Child which foods she hated. She responded: “Cilantro and arugula I don’t like at all. They’re both green herbs, they have kind of a dead taste to me.” “So you would never order it?” Mr. King asked. “Never,” she responded. “I would pick it out if I saw it and throw it on the floor.” Ms. Child had plenty of company for her feelings about cilantro (arugula seems to be less offensive). The authoritative Oxford Companion to Food notes that the word “coriander” is said to deri...