One of the most interesting studies Gary Beauchamp ever saw, he says, was done a few decades ago among the Inuit, who live in Arctic and sub-Arctic Greenland, Canada and Alaska. “Their traditional food back then was dead fish and dead caribou,” he reports, “which they put into the permafrost and allowed to rot. The smell of it … it was just abominable. Awful. You couldn’t eat it.” But the study showed that Inuit adults who’d been fed the carrion as infants liked the taste; otherwise, they found it offensive. That accords with other studies by Beauchamp showing that early exposure to foods through amniotic fluid and breast milk induces lifelong preferences.
— Read more in How One Philly Institute Is Demystifying the Serious Science of Smells at Philadelphia magazine.