Introduction

This chapter summarizes a number of different ways in which to look at our multisensory perception of foods and its impact on behavior, liking, and even emotion. From the first moments we encounter a food during our childhood we develop associations and even preferences, with particular sensory characteristics. This complex network of associations keeps expanding throughout our lifetime and marks how we perceive and react toward foods. There is now a vast amount of literature helping to explain basic questions such as why red drinks tend to taste sweet, like red fruits, why some odors bring us back to childhood, why certain foods activate fight-or-flight responses, and why we eat more of certain foods than others.