British Airways catering items, 1990s T.1994.28.af.af1–4
Courtesy of Culture and Sport Glasgow (Museums)“There's an enormous amount of work...even if you are just serving a cheese sandwich. Everything has to be extremely hygienic.”
William Seeman, International Travel Catering Association
Airline food has a bad reputation. Passengers sometimes joke about how bad it is. However, many airline meals today are prepared by gourmet chefs and often win awards for quality.
Gourmet chefs make the food for airlines? Certainly not for the ones I travel on.
I remember the first plane I was on. I was going to Benidorm, that would be in the early 1970s. It was a wee bit turbulent coming back, going back in. They actually had a whip round for the pilot.
Do you find it surprising that airline meals are sometimes prepared by gourmet chefs? Can you remember your first flight?
My late parents' first ever trip was on a plane to Majorca in the 70s. My dad opened his in-flight meal, sussed out the small sachets containing pepper, salt, mayonnaise etc. He proceeded to relish his salad liberally with everything that was going. He stuck his knife and fork into the food and lo and behold, the cling film was still on it. Don't think cling film was really widely known then! ! My parents had a wee giggle about it and over the years became seasoned travellers, like many Brits, falling in love with Spain.
I flew from Glasgow to London Heathrow to New Delhi in 1976. It was with Air India on a Boeing 707 and I remember I was really surprised because they served Western Food. I really enjoyed it. The only specific thing I remember about the food was that there were cashew nuts, I remember because it was the first time I'd ever tried them and I thought they were brilliant!
We’d all seen the adverts showing trendy people being served by uniformed stewardesses, wearing white gloves dishing out exotic food from silver serving dishes onto china plates and silver cutlery. However the reality was far removed from those images. We were handed a plastic covered cold dish containing a chicken leg, some salad and a roll. My friend "Debsy" ripped off the plastic, unwrapped his plastic knife & fork, only to see the fork shatter into a hundred pieces as he tried to get it into the chicken. To say the chicken was tough is an understatement!
I have absolutely no memory of food being served. I also think alcohol was restricted to a glass of wine with the meal and normally arrived after one had eaten. In those early days, everyone smoked on board, although later on smoking was restricted to the rear couple of rows of seats. The only real memory I have of food was on a Gulf Air Tristar in the late 70's. The food was stored in the hold below the passengers’ seats but the elevator broke down, so the crew had to lift hatches in the floor and pass all the food up by hand I think the food must have been very forgettable!
