 Our wandering food
writer S.M. King reels in shock at
airline food as she returns home.
You don’t expect haute cuisine and linen at 10,000 metres. But,
surely, you might expect more than poor quality cardboard pantomiming as turkey
sandwich. This was my displeasure last week from New York
to Los Angeles
on an American domestic tin can pretending to be an airline. To add insult to
injury, I forked over around US$20 for this insipid grist.
And, I had to listen to Partner whine, “All this gluten will
make me bloat.”
Most domestic American airlines have ditched their complimentary
meal service. Here in Australia,
you need to stick with Qantas if you want nosh included in the price of your
ticket. And be sure to fly at lunch or dinner time to expect anything more than
a muffin. And gluten bloat.
Call me perverse, but generally speaking I enjoy the
experience of airline food. I love the little compartmentalised tray; peeling
back foil to reveal portions that bear little resemblance to their menu
descriptions; the challenge of dividing the one door-stop slice of cheese
between three crackers with the plastic knife supplied. It helps pass the time,
if nothing else.
Things do improve as you move up through the classes, of
course. Most often I fly cattle. Every now and then my gig as a travel writer
affords me a freebie in business class. And, on a few remarkable occasions,
first.
Business and first passengers can expect their meals to be
served course-by-course from a damask draped trolley. Instead of choosing from
the printed menu provided, one selects from the trolley as it wheels past.
Here, Partner’s selective gluten-intolerance is warmly tolerated by agreeable
staff. Here, food is served on real plates, saving it from the steamed sameness
afforded by little foil trays.
Half a century ago this was de rigueur for all who took to
the skies. These days it’s the preserve of those behind the curtain, whose
private little domain remains a sanctuary from the lumpen mass.
If you rarely fly in anything but pig pen, though, take
heart. Whatever the class, food generally does all taste the same. Aircraft
pressurisation and altitude compromise the tastebuds.
There’s a whole field of science working behind the scenes
to inject flavour into that little foil tray. Over-seasoning is the best
defence they’ve presented. If you ate the same thing on the ground, you’d most
likely find it too sweet or salty to endure.
Over the years I’ve consumed many calories in the air. A few
of them have been more than tolerable. I’ve been seduced by yum cha in business
on Cathay Pacific, and spoiled forever by an Arabian mezze in first class on
Etihad.
These, it must be said, were a tad better than the Chicken
or Beef options down the back. Hands-down winner, however, came in a little
foil tray on Royal Nepal Airlines. It was the best dhal and rice I’ve ever had,
served, gratis, by the national carrier of one of the poorest countries on the
planet.
The memory of it makes the sandwich sold to me by an airline
from the world’s richest nation completely indigestible. So I purchased a ten
dollar beer.
“There’s gluten in that,” I warned, as Partner took a swig
that’d put Bob Hawke’s record to shame.
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