The word “taste” has several meanings. One of them is a
physical sense of perception, as, for example, in “It tastes so sweet,
try it!”

Taste may also be defined as aesthetic feeling towards
something or understanding, for example “she developed a taste for
music” - which means that she became fond of music.

Another one is a personal attitude towards something,
as taste for choosing things, such as clothes, jewelry, or even
wall-paper, furniture or paintings for one's house. In this sense we
may say that it's a synonym for “style”.

We often hear people say “this thing is tasteful or
tasteless” or “this person has good taste” or “his taste is bad”. This
means that all of us have some kind of a taste, which is determined by
the way we were brought up, by the time when we were growing. It also
depends on the culture we are living in, on our age and on the people
we are surrounded by. Moreover, it depends on the social class we
belong to and even on our profession.

People are so different and what we suppose is good for
us, what seems beautiful and tasteful to us, may be just the contrary
for other people. Therefore it is said “Tastes differ”.

When we travel to different countries we notice a great
variety of styles, of the ways people dress, decorate their house,
behave themselves, treat their friends and relatives. Cuisine is also
very diverse from country to country. And of course it is all very
fascinating and different from what we have back home.

For example,  we have many dishes which
contain potatoes, and in Mexico the main components of most dishes are
rice and beans. Foreigners are surprised that we always eat soups in
Russia. In the US, for instance, soup is served only on big holidays
such as Labor day or Thanksgiving. Americans also don't understand how
we can eat meat-jelly (or kholodets) or okroshka (chopped greens,
cucumbers, meat, eggs with mayonnaise and kvass).

Tastes differ even within one country. Each of us
perhaps remembers quarreling with one of our friends over what tastes
better: fried potatoes or macaroni with meat, chocolate or ice-cream,
porridge or omelet.

Tastes differ even among people belonging to different
sex. Recently American medical journal Psychology and Behaviour
published the results of a very interesting research. They used the Web
to survey 277 male and female participants in order to find out what
kind of food they prefer. They found that women are more prone to eat
comfort foods high in fat and sugar, such as cakes and ice-cream. Men,
on the other hand, are more likely to turn to soups, pasta and steaks.