In-Flight Meals

I love aeroplane food, no really. Its one of my guilty pleasures. Actually, no. I love the idea of aeroplane food. Those little salty portions remind me of going camping for some reason.

My work means having to endure the tedium of air travel on a regular basis. Up until relatively recently I would forgo most of the heated food parcels and take my own butties, or if I was really organised a little plastic tub with some fruit, a roll, perhaps a wedge of cheese. These days you can be shot for even thinking about taking such a thing through airport security. That apple could be a cunningly disguised dirty bomb, and you'd be surprised how much damage you can do with a bunch of celery, or perhaps some elderberries.

So these days I find myself looking forward to the first fartily fragrant wafts drifting up the aisle. I relish the anticipation and relief of something to break the boredom of another Nicholas Cage film, or perhaps the latest moronic effort from the increasingly vacant Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Here it comes... no, its the bastard vegetarian in the row in front. Hang on... 'Beef or fish sir?' (or if you're flying BMED: "You want beef or fish mate?"). Beef, of course - who in their right mind would eat reheated fish slurry? Apart from the boss-eyed gurgling woman in the seat next to me (it stipulates on my frequent flyer card 'Mr Leckie prefers an aisle seat next to a boss-eyed middle aged woman with bladder control problems' I admire the power of modern databases and the attention to detail of the Star Alliance). I peel back a corner of the lid to peep at what delights lie within, and am overcome by the smell of boiled carrots and cowshed emanating from a grey mass of protein... mmmm. Resealing the foil, I turn to the other delights on the tray:

Bread roll - enjoy these evil little bastards while they last. I've heard they may be subject to a future ban due to being dense enough to use as a deadly projectile.

Petrified fruit salad - tasteless dried up bits of fruit from yesterdays breakfast.

Pasta salad - cold, rubbery and vile. Pesto tastes slightly of diesel.

Cheese and biscuits - biscuits specially developed to explode into crumbs on contact with air, cheese triangle initally fools the eye into thinking its laughing cow (the undisputed king of shit processed cheese), but is later revealed to be made of 80% chalk and 20% used chip fat.

'Lemon fresh' wipe - I do not wish to smell lemony, nor do I wish to smell of lemon fresh wipes. Why not just give each passenger a handful of prawn cocktail crisps to rub around their greasy mouths, it couldn't make them smell any worse.

So, after all my initial excitement I feel disappointed and slightly violated. Fighting the urge to push my plate custard-pie style into the face of the fish-slurping cretin next to me, I drop my shoulders, sigh, and start shovelling down the murky slop like all of the other cattle in economy.

Don't even get me started on 'breakfast'.

But have you been in business class? I was once accidentally put up at the front of the plane on the way from Kigali to Heathrow via Nairboi. Right at the front - no plebs, no tourists stinking of booze and the latest duty free perfume purchase. Just behind the driver, or pilot, as I believe they are called.

Now the food here is fresh, it comes on a proper plate, with decent wine in a proper glass, and - feck - is that a cheese board with a selection of British and continental favourites, cut fresh from the truckle? The bread is fit for human consumption, and the meals are made from something which is identifiable as real meat.

Anyhow, thought I'd mention a few heroes and villains of economy aero-cuisine. I'm excluding low cost airlines (absolute abominations) and regional African airlines, and sticking with the bigger players.

British Airways - Manchester to Milan
A classy do this. A shortish flight with a pleasant lunch. On the way out to Italy you get a salad with parma ham, and some little italian chocolates, but on the way back to blighty you get a mighty ploughman's salad and a Cadbury's thing shaped like a cone. Travelling home for Christmas one time I watched the Italian man in the opposite aisle (anything to avoid eye contact with the inevitable drooling chimp on my left) sizing up his little plastic portion of Branston pickle. He took a cautious sniff, consulted his wife, and then tried to surreptitiously watch what I did with mine. What a dilemma, do I:
Apply pickle as normal to the ploughman's, thus gently introducing my interested Italian friend to one of the many delights of British cuisine?
or,
Dip the chocolate in, and watch Johnny Foreigner follow suit?

Oh come on. Would I?

Royal Air Maroc (Heathrow - Marrkech, and Casablanca - Dakar, same meals).
Food was mostly middling - the usual blandness really. But... Moroccan red wine - a good one as well. Better than the French and South African muck that usually gets palmed off on aeroplanes. Better still, a bizzare orange sachet... soap? no, on closer inspection, a individually wrapped slice of smoked salmon, with a little wedge of lemon. Nice work.

Mrs Jiffler recommends Delta (flying to Jo'burg I think). Everything on your tray is branded. This sounds pretty grim as everything is covered in some sort of vulgar coca-cola logo, but here is the trade off: hagen-dazs ice cream for your pud.

What about the bad boys? *takes deep breath* BWIA (British West Indian Airlines, AKA: Better Walking if Able, Bloody Waiting in Airport etc), who are now called Carribean Airlines (and who knows, may have transformed their catering). 10 hour flights with one meal served after take off. Starving passengers complaining - I remember once a group of large German men almost got into a punch up. And the meal itself? In the 2 year period that I flew with them on various routes the menu never once changed. The only variation was whether they had bread but no butter, butter but no bread, or bugger all bread and butter. The meal tray was absolute filth, like the stuff that accumulates at the bottom of the bath in a student house. On the one occasion that we were served two meals, we just got given the same one twice over.

Worse though... this was in the days that you could still take highly dangerous food and drink on the plane. A journey home from Guyana to the UK was a torturous ordeal. First off - Georgetown to Port of Spain, a small plane full of Guyanese, about 50% carrying a small plastic bag full of curried chickpeas (Channa), stinking out the cabin. At port of spain a quick breath of fresh air while waiting to be told that the connecting flight is delayed, and onto the plane again. KFC is a popular fast food in Trinidad, and is especially appealing to those travelling on transatlantic flights. Its like catching the last train home from London, only it takes marginally longer. Drop down in St Lucia or maybe Antigua to pick up the chipeaters from their two weeks burning themselves bright pink. ON they get, reeking of suncream, the latest duty free booze and perfume. And then the bring out the meals. Arghhhhhhhhhhh.....

The only solution with BWIA is to drink heavily and steadily until your eyes can longer focus and the mouth breather in the next seat is too scared to show you a collection of photographs of her underachieving children.

Your comments please readers (are there still any readers?). Perhaps, despite all the above bile when can provide some sort of public service, one more blow against the airlines who serve up this muck. Maybe one day we'll just get given a Mark and Spencers Ham sandwich and a kit-kat as we get on the plane, and then we can get on with enjoying watching Ocean's 17 or some other such egomaniacal Hollywood toss.