In the present study, the slices of products were coded A, B and C for SC, IC and EM, respectively, which could bias the results as a serial position has been shown to affect preferences (large primacy effect, i.e., advantage of the first) [
12]. However, the slices were presented together, the consumers were free to choose the order of their tasting (not recorded) and SC, which were coded A, were the least appreciated. The overall lowest consumer sensory appreciation of dry-cured belly products from SC was unexpected, in particular because boar taint substances were present in most of the EM products and in some of them at very high levels. It can be speculated that the consumers, despite being asked to score the taste, were evaluating the overall acceptability of the product. The context in which the sensory properties are perceived alter the perception [
13]. Implicit sensory experience (i.e., the ‘taste’ of a food) represents only part of the eating experience; visual and haptic perception reveal the strongest correlations with the overall experience [
14]. It can be assumed that they were biased by visual appearance, most likely the leanness with EM having the most lean and SC the fattiest bellies with IC in the middle but closer to EM (72.8, 54.4 and 68.7 lean %, respectively). This is also substantiated by the fact, that SC was scored the lowest in majority of the product sets and that IC products were scored the highest (and higher than EM) when boar taint substances were at a high level in the EM product. The maximum difference between scores given to SC, IC and EM were obtained in products of set 6, thus, without taint in EM. However, despite this generally best appreciation observed for EM products, the consumers were sensible to taste deficiencies. Firstly, about a quarter of consumers gave the lowest score to the EM product. Secondly, when EM had low boar taint, it was more similar to IC and SC, probably because consumers were not completely satisfied with the taste of EM although not enough dissatisfied to show a preference for SC or IC. However, when EM had high boar taint, IC had higher acceptability than EM, probably because the consumers did not like the EM taste and choosing between IC and SC, the first were less fatty so were preferred. This is demonstrated in
Figure 1, where a downward trend could be observed for EM products, and an upward trend for products of IC and SC, which confirms a reduced appreciation in the case of EM products with boar taint. The review carried out by Font-i-Furnols in 2012 [
8] showed that in two studies, the acceptability of EM pork depended on the level of androstenone or boar taint, but in two studies, the bacon from EM was equally accepted as those from other sexes (IC not included). Contrary as in the present study, Spanish consumers scored the loins from EM lower than those from SC and IC, even when the levels of androstenone were low [
15]. However, in this study with loins, consumers did not see the fatness of the product, which could influence a lot the appreciation of the meat by consumers [
16] and may explain the results of the present study. The literature dealing with the effect of processing technologies on boar tainted meat generally shows that dry-curing does not eliminate its perception in the products [
10,
11]. It is also considered that boar taint substances are not degraded or lost during the long dry-curing process [
17], although in one of our studies we determined some reduction of the concentration of boar taint substances with very long maturing time in dry-cured ham [
18]. However, in the case of pancetta, the process is much shorter. It has also been suggested that the curing process leads to a formation of aromatic compounds that are able to mask boar taint [
19]. The added spices, garlic and black pepper could also contribute to the masking of boar taint [
20]. It is also possible that high leanness of pancetta from EM used in the present study could partly explain why the consumers did not perceive taste deficiencies even more as boar taint is more easily perceived when fat content is high [
8]. This investigation shows that boar taint levels cannot solely explain taste acceptability of pancetta, which corroborates with recently published meta-analysis [
21] indicating that uncastrated males (EM) apart from boar taint, may present reduced meat quality and are more prone to oxidation [
21,
22]. Despite some methodological limitations due to the study design, this investigation provides an insight to the sensory acceptability of dry-cured belly by consumers in relation to the sex category as characterized by leanness and boar taint level.