In the movie, "Baby...Secret of the Lost Legend" the leading characters, Susan and George, are in a jungle, surrounded by a tribe of hostile natives. Susan saves the day by impressing the tribesmen, showing them photos taken with an instant camera. Then the tribesmen invite George and Susan to share a meal in the vilIage. In this scene, George politely forces down some kind of a primitive stew while hiding his disgust. To impress the villagers, George offers a high-tech chocolate fruit bar to the tribal leader, who samples it curiously. The leader then discreetly whispers something to a fellow tribesman, who diverts George’s attention while the leader spits out the piece of fruit bar that he has heen politely trying to consume.
In that particular scene, the movie captured the taste idiosyncrasies that existed about half a century ago, where each nation had its own peculiar taste preferences. More importantly, it illustrates the concept that technology has no influence on taste preference. The good news, however, is that nowadays, although the walls of taste difference and preference still exist among nations, the doors to a new taste experience are certainly more open than closed. In this global age, it is crucial for the flavor chemist, the food technologist and the marketer to understand taste diversities and transnational likes and dislikes, I believe such a complex study should be tackled through analysis of the various global beverage segments. Therefore, taste acceptance should be analyzed in two major categories:
