flat-leaved parsley

[rebecca100]

Okay you guys don't laugh at me. I got a planter of basil, curly parsley, and flat leaved parley for $2 at the master gardener's sale. I thought flat and curly parsley were the same tasting with different leaves. I have never had it before and I tasted some today. The curly tasted good-like parsley. The other was just flat out nasty. It reminded me of tasting and smelling old stinky feet. The smell alone made me cringe. I looked it up and apparently flat parsley does have a different taste, but like that? It looks the same as the pics and I am sure that it has to be the right plant. I even scrubbed it thinking they had put some kind of horrid pesticide or bug repellant on it that wouldn't come off. Has anyone else tasted flat leaved parsley? Did it taste totally different and not like parsley at all?

 

[patandchickens]

The curly tasted good-like parsley. The other was just flat out nasty. It reminded me of tasting and smelling old stinky feet. The smell alone made me cringe.

Betcha you got cilantro by mistake. It is a "love or hate" kind of herb, and does look pretty much exactly like flat-leafed parsley.

To me, the flat-leafed parsley really doesn't taste much different than the curly-leaved.

JMO, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[rebecca100]

You are right!!!!

Here's what I found:
The leaves are variously referred to as coriander leaves, Chinese parsley, cilantro (in the Americas, from the Spanish for the plant). Culantro is a cilantro "copycat," but locals are very adamant that it is a different plant from "foreign" cilantro.

The leaves have a different taste from the seeds, with citrus overtones. Some perceive an unpleasant "soapy" taste or a rank smell and avoid the leaves[3]. The flavours have also been compared to those of the stink bug, and similar chemical groups are involved (aldehydes). Belief that aversion is genetically determined may arise from the known genetic variation in taste perception of the synthetic chemical phenylthiocarbamide; however, no specific link has been established between coriander and a bitter taste perception gene.

The stick in with it said flat leaved parsley. They were mistaken I guess. It exactly reminded me of a soapy stink bug, or stinky feet soaked in a lemon water. The kids said it tasted fine to them. The smell alone makes me shudder. I can still smell it on my hands and I have washed them repeatedly in dish soap!!

 

[sufficientforme]

I love cilantro and so does my whole family! It's one of those or absolutely it as Pat said.

 

[patandchickens]

As luck would have it, I am in the "love it" camp, and my husband and kids are in the "loathe" camp

Such is life!

Pat

 

[rebecca100]

I am in the loathe camp for sure. It could be quite posssibly one of the worst things I have ever tasted. DD liked it. I for one will be avoiding it.

 

[ORChick]

Years ago I went with my workmates to a (new-to-me) Chinese restaurant for lunch. Everybody raved about the chicken salad, and told me I had to try it. I did, and honestly thought that it had gone off, it tasted so odd. But everyone else kept eating it, and saying how wonderful it was. Sometime later I went back to the same restaurant, again with colleagues from work. And again they ordered the chicken salad, and again they raved about it ... and again I thought that something was moldy. -- I should add that I seldom find a food that I don't like, or can't eat, but this was really not very nice. I found out later that the taste I had disliked was cilantro. Not one to be beaten down by an herb I worked at getting to know it, and now I love the stuff. Maybe it was really the chicken salad that I didn't like

 

[kcsunshine]

I'm in the "hate it" camp. My hatred stems from an episode I had with some medication. I belched after taking a particular capsule and this horrid citrus
taste came up in my throat - sorta like I had swallowed a boat load of citrus
smelling air freshener. I had to stop that medication after that and even had a hard time going to my MIL's house because she sprayed that stuff everywhere. Cilantro brings back that whole memory. It's the only thing I hate about my favorite Mexican restaurant, it's in their salsa.

 

[DawnSuiter]

Cilantro should almost NEVER be used in the absence of FRESH LIME juice... what a shame you all did not get a real "fresh" experience... it can be such a LOVELY herb!



Mine just came up in the garden and I couldn't be more excited.