"We only eat what we like" or do we still?

When one thinks about food and oral intakes, and intends to share passion sprinkled with knowledge, ego and memories jump to the page. I discovered the pleasure of food when I started missing it during World War II in refugee camps in Switzerland. We were fed the same unappetizing gruel twice daily, and that lasted almost 18 months. Around me, older refugees (>65 years old), formerly rich and hedonistic, discussed recipes from Auguste Escoffier, Ali-Bab, or Curnonsky; these ladies refused to swallow the brew they were served. They said: “We are not pigs. We are civilized, educated human beings with a palate, a taste, a culture”. And they died, of self-inflicted starvation. They would only have accepted to eat what they liked. For these months and many, too many years after I thought of food every minute, every second; I dreamt of meals; I woke up craving for food, for fat cheeses, for aromatic sausages, for fresh-out-of-the-oven breads. I was obsessed. It never stopped. We know that we shall always like, love the food we liked, loved before the age of six. The foods, the dishes, the cuisines we pretend to like or even love later in life are very few. They are always judged against the enamored dishes we shared in our first childhood. I did not get these, or they were erased. I discovered the tastes of foods in 1947 in Denmark. Coming from France with its rationed 0%-fat Camemberts, Marshall-plan maize bread I had landed in the Land of Fabulous Foods: smoked eels. Danish blue cheeses, endless charcuteries, real milk, soooo many breads, the freshest fish and seafood, legs of lamb, and the pastries that were served to the King… YES there was FOOD, endless, diverse, bringing happiness and joy –and health. It started my quest; it never ended; it never will.What do we like in food? The list is long and open-ended. We obviously follow our senses: sight, smell, taste, texture, diverse sounds. We get messages from our genes, groomed for millennia. We do cherish memories and