FOOD: Europe's American Tastes

It was a food sale calculated to bring nervous heartburn to France's gastronomic nationalists. Below posters of cowboys and astronauts, shoppers at the Inno department store in Paris' chic Passy district snatched up U.S. imports: Bachman's Hanky Panky cocktail corn-puffs, Uncle Ben's rice, Florigold grapefruit, Tropicana orange juice.

All over Europe, consumers are developing a taste—and paying premium prices—for American food products. Despite stiff trade barriers erected by the Common Market, shipments of American fresh fruit to Europe were worth $32 million in 1970, up almost 40% from 1968. The demand is at its peak right now, when much of...