Olives in Cilantro Sauce

When I was growing up, we had a rule at the dinner table: You had to at least try everything on your plate. If you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to eat it, but you had to taste it first. This led to the theatrical display of taking a bite while holding your drink to your mouth, so you wouldn’t have to actually taste whatever it was you didn’t want to eat (in my case, English peas; in my sister’s case, green beans). I wasn’t even that picky of an eater, although I can’t say that at the time my mother’s cooking was that adventurous. We ate the standard American fare (with a Southern twist) of the 1970s and 1980s: pot roast, fried chicken, spaghetti, spanish rice, baked chicken, taco night, broccoli with cheese, and double-stuffed potatoes.

In high school I became a vegetarian—the ultimate expression of picky eating—and by the time I grew out of it in my mid-twenties (thank you, France), I was ready to eat just about anything. Lamb brains, sweetbreads, Brussels sprouts, fresh peas, sweet potatoes, venison, braised goat shoulder, kale, kale, and more kale. Anything except a short list of foods that I cannot, will not eat on a train, in the rain, here or there or anywhere. Of course, in the spirit of the old dinner table rule I still (nobly, bravely) take a taste if served one of these offending flavors because it is true that your taste buds are changing all the time and you never know, you might like it.

That philosophy is the reason I often find myself in a nice restaurant, politely spitting out an olive into my napkin. I don’t like olives and I’m not ashamed to admit it. For some reason, my dislike of olives is a regular source of amazement and disbelief among my friends. “How could you not like olives? You, of all people?” they gasp. Or, from those who have known me for a while, “Oh yeah, I forgot you don’t like olives. It’s so weird.”

Olives have a very strong, very particular flavor and it’s one that overpowers any other foods served with it (for me, at least). I spend a lot of time picking olives out of bread, pasta, and sauces. But I do like olive oil. I love olive oil. There is no rhyme or reason or rationale for food likes and dislikes. You either like something or you don’t. I don’t spend time trying to talk other people out of their food dislikes (or I try not to), and while I wish I could be a gracious guest and eat all of the delicious pasta puttanesca you served me, the truth is that you will find a pile of olives on an otherwise empty plate.

Every once in a while, science (or pseudoscience) presents you with a legitimate reason for your aversion to a certain food. Enter cilantro. Or devil weed, as I like to call it. Supposedly a like or dislike for cilantro is genetically based. If you don’t have the cilantro gene, then it tastes like soap. No one wants to have their mouth washed out with soap masquerading as salsa. I’ve also heard that it’s a matter of smell; some people are unable to detect the chemical in cilantro that makes it smell so good to other people. Cilantro, like olives, has a very strong, very particular flavor. And unlike olives, it’s very hard to pick cilantro out of a dish. Trust me, I’ve tried. It would be one thing if you were always fully advised of cilantro’s presence, but it often shows up unannounced. When the surprise guest at your meal turns out to be cilantro, head for the exit.

There’s only one thing I’ve ever liked cilantro in: spicy eggs Indian style, at Sartaj in Sausalito. I hate cilantro, my friend LEI hates eggs; we both love spicy eggs Indian style. I have no explanation for it.

Addendum: It turns out that I was wrong about LEI’s dislike of eggs, even though I have a very distinct—so vivid, so clear—memory of her saying that she didn’t like eggs but loved spicy eggs Indian style. She usedto hate eggs; now she loves them. This is proof of two things: (1) Memory is incredibly unreliable, and (2) It is true that your taste buds change and, just as you can become allergic to anything at any time, you never know when something you always hated could become your new favorite thing. As further proof, LEI also reports once hating olives but now loving them, thanks to a revelatory bite of olive shortbread at Abraço.

I had a similar experience once with the color pink, but not yet with olives or cilantro.