What was going on when I was born?

ON the occasion of her fourth birthday last week, Lindsay Scherr of Washington, stated her culinary preferences in no uncertain terms. What's your favorite food? ''Ice cream.'' What do you really hate? ''Spaghetti.'' But your mother says you love spaghetti. ''Well, I do but I hate the green kind.'' What's your view of broccoli? ''Yuck.'' How do children develop their eating habits anyway? Are food preferences inborn, or do youngsters somehow sense and imitate a mother's secret lust for chocolate, a father's barely disguised distaste for brussels sprouts? Scientists are slowly fitting together fragments of the great puzzle of why children eat what they do.

The Economy David A. Stockman will resign as budget director on Aug. 1 to join Salomon Brothers, where he will be a managing director involved in corporate and governmental affairs. The departure of Mr. Stockman, who was known for a mastery of the Federal bureaucracy and the budget process, comes as Congress is grappling to reach a compromise budget that would cut spending. The budget director's priority was to reduce the size of the Federal Government in order to limit the deficit. [Page A1.] Some members of the financial community voiced concern that Mr. Stockman's advocacy of smaller deficits and higher taxes might not be heard again during the Reagan term. [A14.] Mr. Stockman's intimate knowledge of the Federal bureaucracy is expected to help Salomon, the largest dealer in government securities. [A14.] President Reagan and Congressional leaders reached an understanding for resolving an impasse over military spending and Social Security benefits, leaders of both parties said. [A1.]

A chart in Science Times yesterday with an article about Eskimo dialects incorrectly described the inflection of verbs. They are conjugated; it is nouns that are declined.

More than 11,000 women are converging on this city from at least 130 countries to bring the United Nations Decade for Women to an end. In the next three weeks, they will assess the achievements and failures of the last 10 years and plot strategy through the year 2000. The unofficial portion of the conference will begin Wednesday when nongovernmental organizations start 10 days of 1,000 informal workshops called ''Forum '85.'' The gatherings will include discussion of topics such as domestic violence, women's rights in Islam, the plight of African refugee women and the exploitation of working women in Latin America.

The Pacific Telesis Group is under investigation by the Department of Justice's antitrust division regarding the company's purchase of companies involved in the cellular mobile telephone business, Government and company officials acknowledged today. ''The department has asked us for certain papers,'' said Margaret Bradford, a spokesman for Pacific Telesis, the Bell operating company that provides local telephone service in California and Nevada. A spokesman for the Justice Department also confirmed the investigation.

Saudi Arabia is threatening to double its oil production, to 4 million barrels a day, and then to increase it to 9 million barrels by the end of the year if other OPEC members do not accept its terms when they meet again on July 22, a high Western official said in an interview here today. The official, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, said Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the Saudi oil minister, made the threat to several governments after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries failed in Vienna last weekend to agree on new steps to control the oil market. Sheik Yamani's new threat appears sharper and more specific than warnings the Saudis expressed before the Vienna meeting. Under Financial Pressure The threat comes at a time when Saudi Arabia is under severe financial pressure from a decline in its oil revenues at current production rates. Saudi Arabia is running the world's second-largest payments deficit, after the United States, drawing down its reserves by $20 billion a year to finance development plans deemed necessary for political stability.

Outwardly, life does not seem to have changed much for John C. Schmidt, the relentlessly casual 43-year-old president of Marysville's dominant bank, the Exchange Bank of Schmidt & Koester that was founded by his great-grandfather soon after the Civil War. He wears polo shirts to work, is on a first-name basis with almost everyone in town and typically enjoys a lunch of a cheeseburger and iced tea at June's Bar and Grill. In his hometown, moreover, Mr. Schmidt never removes the keys from the ignition of his Chevy pickup. But this easygoing exterior belies a mounting pressure on the job. Over the last two years the harsh downturn in the American farm economy has taken a heavy toll on Mr. Schmidt and his still-profitable bank. He finds himself increasingly tied to his desk in negotiations, not only with financially crippled borrowers, but also with Federal regulators.

The Reagan Administration said today that it had told the Sudan of its ''grave concern'' about reports from that African country that it had signed a new military agreement with Libya. In an unusually sharp warning to the Sudanese leadership, which has been in power for three months, the White House and the State Department said that if the Sudan established a military relationship with Libya, this ''could only impact adversely on United States-Sudanese ties.'' 'Less Pro-Western Stance' In Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, the pact was widely viewed as a sign that the Sudan's ties with Libya were warming at the expense of links to Egypt and the United States. A Western diplomat in Khartoum said that '''at the very least, it shows that the new Government here is determined to adopt a more neutral, less pro-Western stance.'' [Page A9.] The ''military protocols,'' which Sudanese newspapers said were signed in Libya last week, have not been published.

BILL NEAL, considered by many to be one of today's finest young Southern chefs, takes a decidedly historical approach to cooking. That is because he considers the regional dishes of this country as important and worthy of preservation as the nation's monuments and architecture. Thus the menu at his restaurant -Crook's Corner in Chapel Hill, N.C. -lists something called muddle, an uncommonly good fish soup that Mr. Neal says is one of the oldest dishes of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. ''Muddle,'' he asserts, ''originated with the first settlers, and the name means 'a mass of fish.' '' He makes a Cajun rib-eye steak with garlic, parsley, basil, thyme and lemon zest, and an authentic Brunswick stew with rabbit. ''Everything I do is as authentic as possible, but with my own refinements,'' the 34-year-old Mr. Neal explained. ''I try to make a personal statement.''

An article in SportsMonday this week about the Henley Royal Regatta incorrectly characterized the final of the Grand Challenge Cup. It was not the first between two American crews; that occurred in 1957, when Cornell and Yale raced.

New York State's highest court ruled yesterday that the Suffolk County Executive had exceeded his authority when he ordered a test of plans to protect Long Island residents in case of an accident at the Shoreham nuclear power plant. In a 4-to-3 decision, the Court of Appeals ruled that the power to adopt an emergency plan was held by the County Legislature, which has adopted a resolution forbidding county participation in emergency planning at Shoreham. The three dissenting judges argued that the Executive, Peter F. Cohalan, had not adopted an emergency plan, but had simply ordered tests to see if one could work. Emergency Plan Required The $4.5 billion generating station, 55 miles east of Manhattan in Brookhaven on the North Shore, is complete. Its owner, the Long Island Lighting Company, began crucial tests Sunday in which the utility will gradually take the plant up to 5 percent of full power. Under the rules of the Federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the plant cannot go into commercial operation at full power without a plan for alerting residents around the site to an accident and sheltering or, if necessary, removing them.

Suicide attackers detonated two car bombs today at checkpoints leading to Israel's so-called security zone in southern Lebanon. Although complete casualty figures were not available, at least 12 people were reported killed and 6 wounded, including 2 Israelis. It was the first such incident since Israel annnounced a month ago that it had completed its formal withdrawal from Lebanon. A short time after the attacks, a pro-Syrian Lebanese group, the National Syrian Social Party, took responsibility. The group identified the attackers, a man and a woman, as students. Lebanese television later showed what it said were prerecorded videotape interviews with the two.