It's amazing that people can have such different tastes. I absolutely hate the taste of black licorice.
Though the act of poisoning yourself and others for fun is an extremely normalized behavior, and has been for thousands of years. We just call it drinking (alcohol).
It does make for a convenient economy of people who will eat the black jellybeans from others' bags :)
Liquorice is an acquired taste (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquired_taste). You have to learn to like it.
I've yet to learn to like licorice and lost interest in trying.
I've acquired several tastes since then, I've tried licorice multiple times, to no avail.
This is absolutely untrue.
Why doubt it so much? "It's genetic" would be the simplest explanation why the preference so fixed and polarising. And also why it's concentrated in some geographic regions.
...I don't know a single American under the age of 70 who will admit to liking licorice. Everyone I've ever known thinks it's vile.
It was popular, like, a century ago. Black licorice now is pretty uncommon.
Won’t touch it again after reading this thread though.
Why? it tastes inedible, repulsive and vile to me. I'm happy for your tastes, but people tend to either like licorice from an early age, or never do. The preference seems strongly innate, not "acquired". Why put myself through something horrid that my body does not want and never will?