Abstract
Food acceptability in children is a complex, multi-dimensional process influenced by sensory perception, expectations, and context. The present study investigated children's perception and acceptance of 20 Mediterranean recipes chosen from five different gastronomy cultures (Lebanese, Egyptian, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese) using photographs as stimuli. A total of 184 children (10 to 13 years old) from three countries (Italy, Lebanon, and Spain) participated in a sorting task with emojis to express liking. In addition, Spanish and Lebanese participants completed a Check-All-That-Apply (CATA) activity to label the recipe groups they had created. The results from the sorting task, analyzed using ANOVA, revealed that recipes including meat/poultry and cereals were most preferred, while legume-based and vegetable dishes received lower acceptance. Children grouped recipes primarily by main ingredient, irrespective of the origin of the recipe (gastronomy culture). Spanish children showed higher acceptance of foreign recipes compared to Lebanese and Italian, demonstrating a significant "country x recipe origin" interaction. The CATA analysis revealed that children associated descriptors such as "healthy", "tasty", or "delicious" with highly rated recipes and descriptors such as "too many vegetables" and "bad taste" with lower-rated dishes. While participants showed a positive predisposition towards the "healthy" term, a negative response to recipes based on vegetables and legumes was evident.