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52 | FireFlyz
The Challenge Of Mile-High Meals
As a passenger, don’t underestimate the challenges involved in
catering for your on-boardmeals. Makingmile-highmeals is not easy!
I
n-flight
meals have come a
long way since passengers were
first given a ‘lunchbox’ on a flight
nearly a century ago, with many
airlines now hiring internationally-
renowned chefs to develop exclu-
sive menus that sound as good as
any restaurant on the ground. That said,
many passengers say in-flight meals are
never quite as tasty as those eaten at
ground level.
So many meals, so little time
Airline caterers often provide meals
for many different airlines, tasked with
producing hundreds, if not thousands,
of meals every week. Take the KL-based
Brahim’s Airline Catering for example –
this is one of the largest airline caterers
in the world and provides meals for 30
international carriers; that is around 160
flights per day. Each airline has its own
menu, with all dishes requiring months
of trialling and testing before they can be
supplied on a large scale. The company
has a staff of 1,200 and together they
produce 46 meals per minute!
Long journeys
Consider the long journey your food takes
before it reaches your tray: airline meals
have to be cooked, chilled, packaged
carefully, loaded on board, and then
reheated safely before being wheeled up
and down the aisle.
Heating in the air
For safety reasons, only certain heating
methods can be used in the air. Most
airlines reheat the food by blasting hot
dry air over it, which is never going to
leave the food tasting as good as when
reheating with a convection oven in a
conventional kitchen. Imagine trying to
re-heat your pasta at home with a hair
dryer!
Plastic is not fantastic
Many things affect the way food tastes,
one of which is cutlery. For a time, metal
cutlery was banned in the air for safety
reasons and research shows that food
does not taste as good when eaten with
lightweight, plastic forks, spoons and
knives. Airlines also experiment with
different size and weight of cutlery to
try and improve the flavour perception.
Hear that?
Background noise affects the taste experi-
ence of eating. Passengers on a plane
are doomed to eat their meals with that
steady hum of the engine and the air con-
ditioning system, which affects flavour
perception. Interestingly, only certain
flavours are affected, with ingredients
like lemongrass remaining just as tasty,
despite the hum. Some airlines have
experimented with giving passengers
noise-cancelling headphones to wear
while they eat to minimise this effect.
Up high
Let’s not forget that flying involves travel-
ling at very high altitudes, which changes
the way we taste and effectively ‘numbs’
the taste buds. Research has shown that
the perception of saltiness and sweetness
reduces by 30%at high altitude, although
sour, bitter and spicy flavours are fine!
Now you knowwhy there are lots of spicy
curries on the menu.