People who hate cilantro really hate it. There's a genetic factor* that makes cilantro tastes soapy to some people. Even cilantro-haters have to admit one good thing about it, though: without it, we would have no coriander. Coriander is actually the dried fruit and seed of the cilantro plant (whose latin name is, tellingly, Coriandrum sativum). It's also a key ingredient in many of your favorite Indian, Middle Eastern, and North African dishes, not to mention my amazing garam masala oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.
*For geeks: There's a cluster of genes on chromosome 11 that code for olfactory receptors. One of those (OR6A2) has high binding specificity for aldehydes, which means it affects how strongly you smell a category of "smell molecules" that include the ones found in cilantro and soap. Within this cluster of genes is a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) — a spot where a single "letter" of DNA is different from the norm. A typo, if you will. In this case, a typo that seems to make this particular smell receptor extra-sensitive to a soapy smell molecule. For this SNP (rs72921001), people with a "C" instead of a "T" are more likely to taste cilantro as soapy, and more likely to hate cilantro. Full article at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.2096v1.pdf
Personally, I can take cilantro or leave it. This is where having it in my own herb garden is nice. While I might buy some herbs for a recipe, I'd never bother to buy fresh cilantro — I'd just leave it out. But once planted, the cilantro seedling doesn't need any extra care, and any time I need a few leaves, it's there. The rest of the time, I can just ignore it.
Until it goes to seed. I tend to let my herbs go to flower — bees love them — and then trim them back once the flowers die. But the ones whose seeds are delicious I leave alone, letting the seeds dry on the plant. Once they're dry, I pick them and fret about whether I should wash off the dirt and bug poop and re-dry them, or just brush them off. (I go case-by-case on that one.) I store them whole until I'm ready to use them, then toast and grind them (or grind and then toast, depending on the recipe).
Why bother? Because fresh spices are a completely different ingredient than the ones you bought three years ago and still have most of a jar of. Flavor diminishes over time, to the point that many people say it's not worth using spices over a year old. Of course, you don't need to grow your own, unless you're into that sort of thing. Just buy your spices in small quantities, more often — ideally, buying only as much as you'll use up in a few months. Markets with bulk bins sections often sell bulk spices, meaning you can buy as little as a tablespoon at a time, at a lower price-per-ounce than the prepackaged jars.
Of course, now that I have all this fresh coriander, it might be time to bake a batch of those cookies.
